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Cork Lined Rooms
Cork Lined Rooms
2024

An ongoing project initiated by Karen David in 2013 visiting and documenting artist’s studios.

Each studio visit is accompanied with a questionnaire based on the original Madeline Debot parlour room game, which became known as the ‘Proust Questionnaire’ (due to the French writer Marcel Proust’s unique answers) with enquiries such as ‘What is your idea of happiness’? These questions are used as a starting point for CLR’s adapted questionnaire, along with others such as ‘What is your earliest memory of art’?

CORK LINED ROOMS refers to the bedroom in which Marcel Proust spent the last three years of his life completing his novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) (1913–1927). Proust spent most of his time in a bedroom with walls lined with cork to keep dust and noise out. In this way he insulated himself from the outside world, keeping his windows closed and covered with heavy blue curtains; the only source of light coming from a green-shaded lamp.

Many thanks to designer Catherine Lutman and all the artists who have generously given their time to this project.

Photography © Karen David, unless otherwise noted.