A Private History: Fragments
National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC), Lisbon (PT)
2015–2016

A Private History: Fragments marked Diane Giraud’s first solo exhibition in Lisbon and introduced the inaugural series through which she entered the field of visual arts. For this body of work, the artist turned to books from her personal library — objects long lived with, annotated, and revisited — and subjected them to a deliberate process of transformation through burning.

From scorched pages and accumulated ash, Giraud composed a series of canvases in which absence is as present as material residue. The works suspend destruction and preservation in tension: intimate histories reduced to remnants, then reassembled into new visual structures. Singed edges, charred text, and layered soot operate as traces of attachment, memory, and loss.

The compositions emerged through a meticulous process. Drawing from techniques associated with gold leaf laying, the artist developed methods to carefully affix burnt fragments onto canvas. The materials were drawn entirely from her own collection — including literary novels, anthologies, business law and political science texts, and fashion magazines — allowing her to cultivate a refined sensitivity to texture, colour, and scale.

Presented at the National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC), the exhibition approached the personal library as an archaeological site. What once existed as a unified archive of books was recast as a constellation of fragments, offering viewers an encounter with the material and symbolic transformation of knowledge, memory, and the written word.

A Private History: Fragments
National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC), Lisbon (PT)
2015–2016
Burnt papers and ashes on canvas
Solo Exhibition
Curator: Sofia Marçal