Perrine Lacroix – RUSTIN.E

RUSTIN.E was developed during Perrine Lacroix’s research residency at the L. Rustin factory in La Chartresur-le-Loir, which manufactures rubber components and puncture-repair patches. Lengths of rubber on metal stands are accompanied by videos tracing how the material is mixed, heated, extruded and cooled. Her research encompassed the factory’s architecture, machinery, colour archives and daily rhythms, alongside the knowledge and gestures of its workers. Lacroix also investigated rubber’s colonial history, from the removal of seeds from the Amazon to plantation economies established across British-ruled Asia. The title evokes the rustine: originally a Rustin trademark, the word has entered everyday French as the generic term for a puncture-repair patch. The work approaches repair as an act of care and resistance, prolonging the life of materials while preserving traces of use and transformation.

Processes of transformation and displacement structure Perrine Lacroix’s practice. Working with materials drawn from construction and everyday environments, she develops minimal interventions that unsettle established spatial and perceptual frameworks. Through acts of extraction and reorganisation, she allows latent tensions between inside and outside, absence and presence to emerge, drawing attention to what escapes immediate perception, where matter and space retain traces of their histories.