The Forgotten Tale, the solo exhibition by French Artist Clarisse D’Arcimoles, launched to great excitement at the Photographer’s Gallery. The three dimensional installation recreates a photograph Clarisse found of Spitalfields in 1902. Visitors are invited to travel back in time to the Victorian era and walk in the footsteps of a family of hairbrush makers.

The captivating installation restages this historical photograph in the present. It is one of Clarisse’s favourite methods. ‘My work has always been inspired by the history of photography… I am fascinated by how a photograph can tell a story and how we can travel into the past through an image.’ Her passion for history is something Clarisse shares with Jean Boucton Champagne, as is her painstaking attention to detail. ‘I then spent hours planning, sketching and model making.’ Four years in the making, the exhibition has been a labour of love for Clarisse and shows her incredible passion for history and art.

 

 

Jean Boucton Champagne were proud sponsors of the evening. Guests enjoyed Champagne Jean Boucton Première Cuvée as they explored the exhibition. Clarisse hopes the installation will ‘remind people how gloomy, bleak and hard life was in the East End.’ However there is also a ‘brave determination to survive and love.’