Cécile Barraud
De Lagerie
Pauline Rivière
VIOLET ABC
 12.MAR.2025

ABC Violet


Purple. Amethyst, lilac. Blue, indigo. Plum. Aubergine. Violet, purplish, dark, spectrum, tints, colours, lavender, magenta, complementary, dye, flowers, dyes, garnet, Parma, velvet, colourings, pale, reflections, cassock, coloured, purplish, quartz, quetsche, linings, wavelength, purple, petals, grey, manganese, satin, aniline, cyan, mourning, zinzolin, cobalt, colours, edible, mulberry, ultramarine, prism, dress, ultraviolet, light, night, dark, fuchsia, shades, ribbon. Tones, brown, hair. Sea urchin. Shampoo, dyes, colourimetry. Blushes, reddish, Ruby, tones, biju, buddleia. Colour fields. Perfumery, pansy, royal, daphne willow, rape, sea violet. Milka, Yahoo, Twitch, FedEx, Cadbury. Sugar galçage, children's toothpaste. Satins. Leaky, neither hot nor cold. Salient. Pantone Violet c/u. #440099. 
cmjn 57, 100, 0, 40. ral 4005.  
rgb (68, 0, 153). hsl 267°, 100%, 30%. Periwinkle, violet, marshmallows. Glycines. Purple Haze. Perfumes and sex toys. Syrup. Chow-chow tongue. Purple vodka, sunsets. Freezer dbz. Shelves. Ash hair, Patty and Selma. Custom ultra-blue pearlescent purple-green flip chameleon car in gta. 
Purple Rain, obviously. 
Red cabbage. 
Malice emoji.  

Words try to say one thing and certainly kill it at the same time. They translate and betray a point of view that sets about the oh-so-difficult task of defining a shade, or even worse: a colour.
       What colour does, in particular, is to go beyond the needs and rigidity of language. To express what is beyond the constraints of intelligibility: colour chips away at the veneer of mastery, consistency and skill that it prides itself on respecting. A corollary of sensitive experience, beyond what the eyes can perceive, it thwarts any sensory apathy by successive and uninterrupted eruptions of contrasts, moods and unspeakable atmospheres. Colour expresses with great precision what cannot be said. It thickens our experience of the sensory.
       Indispensable, it is intuitively placed on surfaces, impregnating things with all the stories they carry, which our eyes are able to digest without a hitch. Colour goes beyond questions of identity by implicitly reflecting the nuances and contexts we experience through it. It's a field of expression that's uninhibited, spontaneous and free, and that interferes in even the smallest details; Beyond the various practices linked to the techniques of working with colour, we could also think of its everyday necessity, as found in shadows on the eyelids or in nail art micro-paintings—such small surfaces investigated by this pleasure, that even people in prison don't shy away from occupying them (using deodorants and printer inks to make eye shadow, according to Jailhouse Makeup by Lizzie Kommes).
      Colour becomes an affective element; only incidents cast doubt on their cohesion. Monochrome pleasures, palettes and cameos, colour studies, complementary colours, ridiculous classifications, colour charts, from lightest to darkest, from bluest to reddest, from dullest to brightest... of course. But it's impossible to associate a word with a colour. 
      This is what Cécile and Pauline set out to portray in their research into purple. Not to define a set of faithful characteristics, but to highlight its movements. Mutations and transformations made up of stories that run through this single colour—which is neither more nor less a witness to these phenomena than any other.
      As such, they more readily adopt the idea of a plurality of sporadically associated grammars. Colour thus dictates the attitude of research towards it: it is intended to be collaborative, transdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and tree-like. A dynamic of collection makes it possible to unhierarchise the narratives that run through this resolutely subjective testimony.


        To stay on the crest of the ridge drawn by the theme of violet, the researchers use chromatic fields as tools that are more likely to collaborate with our language virus, and to propose a common course. There is no truth to the magic of colour, and its dialectic can only be as ambiguous and plural as its image. Without consensus or compromise, the experience remains whole, free and open. With the help of chromatic fields, it is more likely to be possible to reach the contexts that make colours communicate with each other, combining their themes in landscapes.

Colour can be a tangible opportunity to speak of the multiplicity of the world, in its widest diversity: it is the politics of the multiple. All colour tells us that what appears is only so in relation to its context. We want monochromes, not monopolies.
—
a§s

Cécile and Pauline's proposal has been designed as a practical colour workshop, with several areas of activity
      library-laboratory
      wall of shades
      a collection of memento quotes
      confessionnal


ANALOG PHOTOS Eléonore Bonello & Raphaëlle Serres

The various printed materials use the Crickx typography by Bye Bye Binary, available at typotheque.genderfluid.space
We would also like to thank Marine Pascal (@marine_pascal) for her great contribution to the various materials printed during the event-workshop.
Cards and exhibition text printed by Eléonore Bonello
Bar provided by Eléonore, Lisa and Renaud
Flowers provided by Renaud

The researchers are available for any contributions that would support their research.
You can contact them—
symposiumduviolet@gmail.com
Illustration (spectral purples)

Purple personality test

Pink Ladies' statement for Lesbian Day of Visibility — The Pink Ladies are a group of lesbian, bisexual and queer cis and trans women who have been working for over 10 years for the visibility, respect, recognition and defence of the rights of LGBTQIA+ women.
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Violet ABC, wall of shades
Violet ABC, library-laboratory
Violet ABC, wall of shades
In 1856, William Henry Perkin, a young London chemist, patented the first synthesis of a violet dye by accident, when he tried to synthesise quinine, the anti-malarial drug of the Victorian era

The lilac fairy, Peau d’âne

Claude Monet, Misty Morning on the Seine, 1897
Ad, 1895
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Violet ABC, a collection of memento quotes
Violet ABC, wall of shades
Violet ABC, wall of shades

Automatic corrections

Ursula, antagonist in Disney's The Little Mermaid
Yzma, antagonist of Kuzco, the Mega Emperor (Disney)
Synthesis of a violet pigment
Color choices, ABC Violet
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Purple intentions on the outfits of the guests at the spasss event
Violet ABC, library-laboratory
Violet ABC, contact
Violet ABC, library-laboratory

PLAYLIST
From the researchers
—

Luis  Marino
L’amour est un bouquet de violettes

Joe  Dassin
La violette africaine

Renée Leebas
La valse des lilas

Serge  Lama
Les glycines

Anne Sylvestre
Violette

Renata Tebaldi
Le Violette

Michèle Arnaud
La valse des lilas

Hole
Violet

Coldplay
Violet Hill

Arletty
Deux sous de violettes

Ute Lemper
The Lavender Song

Spoliansky
Das Lila Lied

Mingginyu
Lilac

Hélène Martin
Les violettes

Nina Simone
Lilac Wine

David Hodges
Violet’s song

Johan Papaconstantino
Purple

Prince
Purple Rain

Lina Margy
Les violettes

Retriever
Purple

FKA twigs
Ultraviolet

René de Buxeuil
Les violettes

Freya Ridings
Ultraviolet

Maxime le Forestier
Mauve

Luis Mariano
Violetas Imperiales

Ladylike Lily
Les Violets

Danny Elfman
Violet Beauregarde

Serge Lama
La vie lilas

Cécile McLorin Salvant &
Sullivan Fortner
La valse des lilas

Dounia
Lavender

Taylor Swift
Lavender Haze

Lexis Carroll
violet

Violet
Chachki & Allie X
Mistress Violet

12 songs, op. 21
Lilacs

Flavien Berger
Mauve

Johan Papaconstantino
Purple

la honte
Pluie Violette

Rien Virgule
La consolation des violettes

Shusha
The Violet

Guillaume de Chastillon
Cuillant La Violette

Frank Zappa
The Purple Lagoon

Monte Young &
Marian Zazeela
Dream House Installation
ASSSABOUT! NOW ! 11.06.2025 Bienvenue! Welkom!, Tommy LecotFR / NL / EN