MAGGIE SILVERMAN

Maggie Silverman is an interdisciplinary artist working with storytelling, place, memory, and the unseen. She creates immersive, sensory installations and performances, using materials, movement, and sound to amplify overlooked voices and experiences.

The starting point for this artistic research was the natural environment of the Domaine de Boisbuchet: a living landscape that offers both inspiration and a process open to experimentation with the materials. During a three-week residency, artists Diego Lara (Madrid, 1993) and Maggie Silverman (Berkeley, California, 1962) developed a collaborative work focused on the exploration of the territory, guided by active listening offered by the place. Diego and Maggie met during their residency. Though they came from different generations and places they found a natural rhythm of collaboration.

The project was articulated from a direct relationship with the natural elements present in the environment: the water of the lake, fallen leaves, bark, natural clay, and the textures that emerge from the interaction between time, climate and matter. To these were added tools found by chance, fragments of objects, work remnants, or discarded materials, which were incorporated into the process of stamping and formalisation.

The resulting pieces attempt to activate the five senses. From paper compositions made with direct prints of natural elements, which translate forms and traces of the environment into visual gestures, to a sound piece that captures both the acoustic landscape and the creative process itself, the project explores multiple layers of perception. Touch is manifested in objects moulded from lake mud, unfired. On the other hand, taste and smell are evoked through mineral compositions made with different phases of clay drying. Far from pursuing a fixed result, this project was constructed from a continuous dialogue between the place, the materials and the artistic practice, in an attitude of openness and care. Through simple, collaborative and sensory gestures, this intervention integrates itself into the ecosystem of the Domaine de Boisbuchet as a form of attention and reciprocity, where doing becomes a form of belonging.

“The residency reminded me of the importance of carving out time for deep creative work, time free from urgency. It affirmed my belief that meaningful art grows from relationship.”

Photos : Manon Arrougé