The context

Before being a mining town, Cransac was, in the 19th century, a village known for its thermalism. After the closure of the mines in 1961, Cransac became a spa town with a population of nearly 7,000 people living from coal mining. It became a spa town that highlights the particularities of its subsoil. The period of its history associated with mining has strongly influenced the municipality and shaped its identity. Collective memory is now linked to this workers' memory. Changes in landscapes and social behaviour are therefore essential concepts in Cransac's recent history. By using an artist, the patrons wanted to go beyond remembrance. If the consideration of industrial and mining history remains important in the definition of the commission, the articulation of the past and the present must convey new values and concerns in relation to the development of thermal activity and the evolution of the urban landscape. The municipality chose Joëlle Tuerlinckx, an internationally renowned artist. From the outset, she focused all her attention on the context of her intervention. It has been inspired by human encounters and architectural and geological discoveries, which it has memorized and crystallized in the form of notes, sound and visual recordings, all of which constitute the genesis of the work.

The commission

Joëlle Tuerlinckx elaborated a project in which the entire museum structure and its functioning were evoked : the collection, conservation, inventory and setting up of successive exhibitions, but she upset the schemes and proposed "a museum turned upside down like a glove" which was based on a triangular of places. "The Cransac Triangular' MUSEUM OF MEMORY - UNIVERSAL PROPERTY ®'" consists of a 34 m high 'Memory Monument' erected on the former mine tile, near shaft No. 1 (the monument represents one tenth of its depth) and two poles designated by the artist as 'Contemporary Showcase' and 'Historical Showcase' of the Memory Museum. The title given to the work pays tribute to Jean Jaurès: "Universal education, universal suffrage, universal property, that, if I may say so, is the true premise of the human individual." The artist has retained from this sentence his universal spirit and his utopian dimension. *"Socialism and freedom", article published in La Revue de Paris, December 1, 1898.

Joëlle Tuerlinckx

Joëlle Tuerlinckx was born in 1958 in Brussels where she lives and works. She has presented her work in numerous solo exhibitions at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2010, the Mamco in Geneva in 2007, the New York Drawing Center (United States) in 2006, the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe (Germany) in 2004, the Frac Champagne- Ardenne in 1994 and the Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (Netherlands) in 1994, and the Centre d'art contemporain de Labège (Haute-Garonne) in 1992. She was invited to the "Documenta 11" in Kassel (Germany) in 2002. His works are in major international and French collections: MoMA (New York); Generali Foundation (Vienna); Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht); Sammlung Hoffmann (Berlin); Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid); The Renaissance Society (Chicago); Frac Île-de-France (Paris), Frac Lorraine (Metz), Frac Nord-Pas-de-Calais (Dunkerque) and Frac Picardie (Amiens).