Malefica by Maëlle Gross, CACY

Two large-format rugs formed central elements of the exhibition. The circular white rug Helen features a poem whose characters emerge in relief from the surface. The script is based on an alphabet that the Swiss spiritualist Hélène Smith developed at the end of the 19th century for communication with an extraterrestrial world she described. Language here becomes material, structure, and spatial experience.

For the exhibition Déplier les mondes at Labanque in Béthune, it was Helen later recreated in a smaller format. The spiral-arranged script there integrates into an exhibition about invisible worlds, spiritualist voices, and alternative forms of perception.

The second rug is titled Mapping my own connexion . Its colorful, irregular shape represents an abstract cartography of the placenta – an organ of connection, protection, and transmission. The work is conceived not only as an image but as a walkable and usable space: a surface where people can lie down, read, reflect, and come together. The rug, made of pure virgin wool, measures 300 × 250 centimeters and was tufted with dyed wool.

With these works, Maëlle Gross frees the rug from its purely functional or decorative role. It becomes a carrier of images, a space of language, and a social territory – an art form that can be not only viewed but physically experienced.

Ruckstuhl supported the art project with a material sponsorship, contributing to part of the textile production.