Title : An educational-artistic exhibition on the skin and the main dermatoses
Abstract:
No other organ in the human body has as many functions as the skin: biological, cultural, social and psychological.The skin is a sensory organ, of touch and expression. The skin is the first thing we notice and the basis on which we draw conclusions about a person. It provides information about our state of health, our moods, our age and sometimes our cultural background.The skin is a multi-layered structure, a cutaneous paper which covers our body, a carnal envelope which maintains our physical and psychological integrity. The face represents the essence of the self. The SKIN is “the paper of the self.”
ORIGAMI - from oru, “to fold”, and kami, “paper” - is the art of paper folding. This technique probably dates from the Edo period in Japan (1608–1868). SKIN and ORIGAMI, beyond the word play around paper, are similar in several respects: the polygonal network, the basic folds, pleat folding, the polygonal shapes and a common history around a symbol. Hence, the idea of producing artwork connecting the skin with the art of origami to pay an artistic tribute to the organ that is the skin.
Our artistic and cultural endeavor has an educational purpose; it seeks to communicate knowledge of the physiology of the skin to different audiences by using and disseminating the technique of origami. This exhibition is directed at two audiences:
- To an audience of initiates, dermatologists and scientists specialized in skin biology who will be able to recognize the basic facts of skin physiology reinterpreted by origami
- To the general public, from 3 to 99 years old, so that they can discover the unsuspected complexity of the skin.
We firstly took photographs of different skins, with different magnifications, which were developed on different-sized squares of paper in order to make folded structures in accordance with a selection of origami models. With skin physiology being reinterpreted through origami in this way, we logically called this educational-artistic exhibition “PEAUrigami®” associating the French word “peau” (skin) and “origami” with its translation in Japanese.
After PEAUrigami® dedicated to the physiology of the skin, I continued my creative work on skin with the artistic reinterpretation of the main dermatoses within the framework of the PEAUrigami® [DERMATOGAMI] exhibition. This exhibition is created from photos of skin affected by the main dermatoses and is based on the etymology of the dermatosis presented. The Greek or Latin origin of the Dermatosis is translated visually via a Japanese paper-folding. So, “acne” from the Greek, which means “tip”, “summit”, will be reinterpreted via a pointed origami structure produced from photos of the skin of acne sufferers. PEAUrigami® exhibitions have been presented at the ESDR* 2019 and EADV** 2019 Congresses and this educational-artistic concept dedicated to skin has been published in international pear revues.
Next step is now to be used in private dermatology practice as no efforts can be spared in conveying the message about the prevention of the dangers of the sun on the skin and, in particular, methods that instinctively produce emotions and feelings of danger through the limbic system. Scientific driven Art such as PEAUrigami® can produce this type of conscious and subconscious emotions, especially when the vision of the artist is combined with that of the dermatologist.
