In may 2002 I was invited to participate in a Performance Residence at "Les Subsistances" in Lyon, France. For about a week I stayed in the abandoned/renovated buildings that were used by army and customs for many years, now turned into a cultural space for the city of Lyon. Other participants never saw me during the week since I was always out, scourging the city for locations to perform my "Fleurs de Peau". "Fleur de Peau" literally means "Skin Flower". It is also the name of a kind of fine plaster, used to make detailed casts of bodies as in death masks or naturalist sculptures.
Every day of the Residence I went out to various parts of town and more or less out of sight, I tied one of my limbs, an arm, a leg, a hand, to a tree or a piece of metalwork with a rope, some twines or something I could find on the spot. Then I covered the ligature with plaster. When the plaster hardened I cut the rope around my limb as such that the cast with parts of the rope or twine embedded would stay behind on the tree or metalwork. On the final night of the residence I handed out maps of the city with the places of my "Fleurs de Peau" marked.
The "Fleurs de Peau" are documented here.
This was the view from my window early in the morning of 13 may 2002 when I left Les Subsistances while everybody was still asleep.
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