Hortus Conclusus, The Aviary

Anne and Patrick Poirier, both born in 1942, are a French artist couple. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, they developed a joint body of work focused on memory, seen as a space for questioning identity, both individual and collective. Former residents of the Villa Médicis from 1979 to 1983, they present themselves as archaeologists, architects, photographers, sculptors, or landscapers. Their works, often installations, take the form of miniature models blending real places and dreamlike landscapes.

The work Hortus Conclusus, installed at the Mulhouse zoological garden, was first exhibited at the André Malraux Space in the same city. Made of stainless steel, it consists of a main cone 7 meters high and two secondary cones 2.3 meters tall, connected by four corridors. This structure serves as an aviary for the zoo's doves, as suggested by its title, which means "enclosed garden" in Latin.

The artists explain this creation through their reading of Bergson's book Matter and Memory, where memory is illustrated by a conical graph. They adapted this concept by inverting the cone's tip toward the sky, thus creating a metaphor for memory. The smaller cones symbolize "sub-memories," while the translucent space houses the birds in motion. This interpretation remains a poetic, not scientific, approach.