Antoine Donzeaud, Hestia

Hestia, 2021
55bis, Paris

Hestia, 2021
55bis, Paris

Antoine Donzeaud, Is that me ?, 2021
HD video, sound
2'05''
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Divine woman who receives the one who arrives within her, Hestia is the hostess of this place.

Hestia is a quiet goddess, often forgotten despite her status as the eldest of the gods. She is said to be Chronos' first and last-born: indeed, if she was Rhea's first child, she was the last regurgitated when Zeus freed his siblings. She is a start and end marker at both margins. And from the interval it represents, a space is born. It is in this interval that we invite. A space in which it is possible to meet.

Hestia is a fire divinity. The central fire of the earth, and the earth itself. The Greek word Hestia means hearth - the fire that burns in a space.
Hestia is the goddess of the home. That of the city, public hearth, and that of the domestic hearth. She is the focal point at the center of many activities: celebrating a birth, celebrating life, or mourning the death of an individual.

Hestia is a unique goddess, because unlike the Olympians, she does not interfere in the affairs of the world. Paradoxically, she is the only goddess present in every house through this burning fire. A many-faced goddess, embodied in different ways in every home.

Goddess of home and hospitality, she connects families and communities.
Goddess of the sacrificial flame, she is the heart and soul of a house.

This flame, her symbol, is the impermanence of our identities, and the power of our transformations.

Hestia is also a collective exhibition, or rather, a gathering of twelve unique universes. Twelve artists, like the twelve Olympian deities.

The two apartments welcome the artists of the exhibition, at a given time, in these intervals. I want to show you the fragmented story of a common history. A home being built, under construction, by bringing together several identities.

Where are we at home? Our world has experienced long periods of isolation. We have been told to stay at home, but there is a misunderstanding on the terms. Home is a place where you gather. Being at home is being together.

Hestia transforms the exhibition space into an editing studio for a moving story that highlights the notion of home today: as many gazes on to inhabit a space.

Sequence 1, the Primitive Hearth, central fire of the earth. Sequence 2, Exo Home, what makes a community today? Sequence 3, the regenerative fire. Unlike the destructive fire of Hephaestus, Hestia’s flame is one that purifies and whose aura warms these intervals.

Many-faced goddess, it is through the prism of her gaze that the exhibition must be experienced.. Her spirit is embodied in the house ... would it then have a soul?

– Sacha Guedj Cohen