SPECTRAL MATTER
2021–2024

Photograms and chromatic variations from the Grand Palais renovation — traces and a sensory memory

Spectral Matter was born of a carte blanche residency at the Grand Palais, during the renovation of the monument. Year after year, Marguerite Bornhauser walked the construction site and gathered what it left behind: debris, splinters, forgotten fragments. Dated, catalogued and kept in her studio, these remnants bear witness to a transformation in progress.

They then become the very material of the images. Placed directly on photosensitive paper in the darkroom and exposed to light, they imprint their shapes, textures and traces. The photogram, a camera-less technique traditionally associated with black and white, unfolds here in colour.

Chromatic variations turn this waste into abstract compositions, where matter becomes colour and detail becomes image. Of what was meant to vanish with the works, there remains a sensory memory of the monument: no longer its architecture, but its luminous dust.

With the support of RMN-Grand Palais and Louis Roederer. Artist's book forthcoming from Poursuite Éditions, November 2026.