Faire le sale – Delphine Reist

Accustomed to staging all kinds of everyday objects—sometimes activated, sometimes autonomous—Delphine Reist uses them to construct the theoretical foundation of her practice: an exploration of the forms of physical and psychological alienation inherent in systems of labour, and, by extension, in the societies that produce them.

At URDLA, Delphine Reist continues this investigation through ordinary gestures and tasks that often remain invisible, particularly when they belong historically to the realm of women’s work. Canvas bags, irons and ironing boards thus become vehicles for a reflection on the value and recognition of domestic labour.

To this end, the artist engages with lithography and the diversity of its processes—transfers, offsets and traces— to fix these objects onto paper, in an attempt to make them exist in another dimension. Reactivated and displayed outside their original context of use, these objects will find a new resonance within the former tulle-manufacturing factory: that of a dialogue between industrial and domestic memory.

The exhibition is structured around a close dialogue between a body of lithographs printed and published by URDLA between 2024 and 2026, bronze sculptures co-produced as part of a workshop conducted with the Lyon National School of Fine Arts (ENSBA Lyon), and unique works from the artist’s studio.