For the fifth edition of the Rubis Mécénat Prize in partnership with Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Saint-Eustache Church, artist Liselor Perez was invited to create a site-specific work. Titled Cent Sommeils (One Hundred Sleeps), the installation consists of figures made from wood, fabric, and acrylic resin, arranged in three locations around the church: in a side chapel, near a pillar in the nave, and near the transept.

Entirely handcrafted, sewn, and assembled, these sculptures are partially covered with decorative motifs inspired by each of these locations. They evoke bodies at rest congured in ambiguous postures: somewhere between searching, meditating, and praying.

The artist has sculpted both the fragility of these puppet-like silhouettes and their silence.Newly graduated from Beaux-Arts de Paris, Liselor Perez repurposes the imaginary world of the puppet and the doll (often associated with manipulation) to create a space for metaphysical re ection.

These figures, which “have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see” (Psaume 113B,5) are not inert simulacra. They become a mirror of our condition: through them, we are called to question the enigma of the human being facing him or herself.