Contrainte / Restraint

An exhibition produced by the Groupe Molior

Nicole Franchy, Satellite Cities (2009)

Nicole Franchy’s research began with the study of the accelerated growth of Chinese cities in the Pearl River delta. This huge urban area, a meshwork of architecture and landscape covering 1500 kilometres of highway, connects three cities, and has 5 airports. This great parasite organism—apparently perfect—encompasses dysfunctions due to its vertiginous growth: ghost towns that are disconnected from the networks of abandoned highways and industrial complexes. Following this discussion, Franchy provides an analogy between electronic circuit patterns and these new models of urban growth. This is an interactive installation based on a dystopian view of contemporary global society as well as on the technical specifications of a circuit: a technological nomenclature. Franchy abstracts architectural constants and standardizes them in three patterns that structure the models of three cities. The installation configures a translucent network similar to that of a living organism in which one can see the functioning of its internal organs. This seemingly perfect system encloses functionality in a paradoxical form: the video projections of highways in the midst of the transparent diorama do not connect the different zones with each other but, on the contrary, isolate them.

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Nicole Franchy was born in Lima, in 1977. She graduated from Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Corriente Alterna (Silver Medal, Honours). She studied interactive software at Centro Fundación Telefónica in Lima and she is starting a Master Degree in Fine Arts at HISK Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Her recent solo exhibitions include Patron 3.15 H9 at Galería Vértice, Lima (2008), Espacios Compartidos at Centro Cultural Ricardo Palma, Lima (2006) and Urbania at Galería 5006, Buenos Aires (2007). She participated in recent group shows such as Des-habitables (traveling exhibition: Lima, Madrid, 2009-2010), La construcción del lugar común at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Lima (2008), Frontera / under the skyline at Galería Vértice (2007), Buenos Aires Photo at Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires (2006 and 2007 editions), Método de Duda at Galería Artco, Lima (2003). She has received many awards such as the First Prize of Photography Humboldt / Goethe Institute, Lima (2002) and she was a finalist for the X Concurso de Artes Visuales “Pasaporte para un Artista” / Embajada de Francia, Lima (2007) and the Unión Latina Prize (2008, finalist). She lives and works between Rome and Belgium.