On the occasion of Paris Design Week 2025, maison parisienne gallery presents “Coraux de la Liberté”, a monumental installation by textile artist Aude Franjou, within the Colonne de Juillet, a national monument located on the Place de la Bastille. Visible from September 4 to 13, the work takes over the interior space of the rotunda, rising up to the heart of the monument’s metal structure.

Made entirely of flax fibre, the installation is composed of hundreds of coral branches that emerge from the vaults and extend to the top. A chromatic gradation guides the eye, from the immaculate white of the devitalized corals to a deep red, embodying their regeneration. This transition symbolizes death and rebirth, in a powerful metaphor of resilience.

Aude Franjou’s work is rooted in research into living things, their slow growth and capacity for rebirth. She sculpts textiles with a gesture inherited from tapestry, using raw linen in tension to create petrified organic forms. Through color, she reveals volume, a sign of life. Coraux de la Liberté is part of a recent cycle by the artist devoted to corals, initiated with the work “2°C”.

“Coraux de la Liberté”, like an immersive reef, pays tribute to the history of the Colonne de Juillet, an emblematic monument under the aegis of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN). Initially designed to house a monumental fountain celebrating the arrival of water in Paris, this site steeped in memory now sees another form of flow: that of creation, of living matter, of a freedom celebrated in the slow elevation of a craft gesture.