Présentation d’archives de la Maison Saint-Joseph is a display mapping my engagement with La Maison Saint Joseph’s site and collection. It offers a visual and conceptual synthesis of my research and time spent in Crépy-en-Valois. Inspired, in part, by both Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas and WEB Du Bois’ Data Portraits,  the display presents an amalgamated story of the collection from my perspective.

The investigation begins with Yori I. Pimenov’s A Race (1928), pictured in Social Realist Painting, alongside an excerpt on fantasy, folk art, and primitivism in Surrealist and Dada art (from Modern Art History). These texts sit with Nothing but the Blues and my personal copy of Early Negro American Writers, reflecting my ongoing interest in global art-making of the 1910s–1930s.

Alongside these texts are objects from the collection that highlight early-modern technologies, ritual, mythology, fine china, and decorative antiques. Additionally, personal items belonging to the collection, such as a family painting of (what is believed to be) a Moroccan landscape, jewelry, and a sculpture of a woman in a dress woven by the site’s owner, modulate tensions between presentation, care, and preciousness.

This arrangement situates me within the residency, raising questions about bringing one’s full self into both private and shared space, how objects can subtly guide our movements and attention, and the hidden histories that objects carry, many of which will remain undiscovered. Présentation d’archives de la Maison Saint-Joseph invites speculative storytelling, critique, and aesthetic inquiry, intertwining personal, archival, and collective narratives.