32 INTERVIEW Capucine Safir
Tubogram, 2014, wood + polyurethane foam, 220 x 240 cm
exactly what I want. I want everybody to feel the same thing I feel when I create them. When I work, I close my eyes and caress, again and again. My hands are my eyes. I love the contrast of the impression of lightness of the finished piece and the actual heaviness of the material itself. Is there a piece which has held a particular significance with you? ‘Tubogram’ was a commission for an exhibition about the Surrealists and the American Journalist
Varian Fry who helped over 1,500 people to escape the German occupation. This piece is very strong and is very important to me since it was the first time I worked on such a powerful subject. Tubogram was the name of a technique to transmit messages in occupied France. The technique was to put messages inside condoms that were hidden in toothpaste tubes. Varian Fry was sent to Marseille with a list of 200 people to save from the German occupation in France but he soon realized that the rescue would concern more than the 200 people that were on the original list. Thanks to the tubogram,