Le Chœur des Mascarons
1 A mascaron is an architectural ornament in the form of a human face—grimacing, contorted or intensely expressive. Since the Renaissance, mascarons have adorned façades, bridges, fountains and gateways. They guard thresholds, ward off evil and mark the passage between outside and inside, between the familiar and the unknown. Their expressions are never neutral: they stare, grimace and warn.
Le Chœur des Mascarons
The choice of the mascaron is not merely decorative but structural. In their own time, these children were photographed as medical cases, as deviations from the norm, as objects of scientific observation. The mascaron reverses that position: the face that was once examined now becomes the guardian. The child who was once an object becomes the keeper of the threshold.
Nine faces, nine thresholds. Together they form a choir—not of voices, but of gazes.
