Maud Gourdon (b. 1991, Beauvais) makes installations based on a range of media such as publications, texts, drawings and sculptures. Her practice explores possible points of contact with history and old traditions by means of intimate stories and trusted objects. Language and coincidence play a leading role in Gourdon’s artistic process. Slips of the tongue and homophones – words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings – are important components of the narratives in her work. ABC DNA (2019) is part of the installation A Flower is Speaking to a Dog, based on the eponymous publication in which Gourdon explores DNA as a building block of language. For this, the artist replaced parts of random DNA strands with basic English words such as ‘dog’, ‘flower’ or ‘mother’. Along the way, a storyline or score was created for two characters, ‘dog’ and ‘flower’, which latently follows the structure of human hereditary material. ABC DNA consists of 43 slides and an equal number of brass rings that hang on the wall as a chain. Formally the work recalls the different links that together form the structure of a DNA strand. The slides hang in a specific order and tell a story about the creation of the universe, freely inspired by various creation myths.
