Day Trip to
Mount Sales

The tablecloth featured in the video installation Crumbs, which is the only item Chefetz's grandmother possesses from her own mother, is adorned with Toile de Jouy patterns. This style is characterized by monochromatic prints of pastoral or bucolic scenes that narrate a story. Developed in the 18th century, it became a definitive French aesthetic hallmark. Yet, the style encapsulates a "migration" of its own: it appeared 500 years earlier on Chinese porcelain, traveled to Europe in the 17th century leading to the evolution of Delft Blue pottery in the Netherlands, and only later appeared in textile production in France.

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In the work Day Trip to Mount Sales, Chefetz created a wallpaper featuring illustrations in this style. The drawings are based on photographs he took during a hike in the Drôme, where he continued his trip alone after the Cousinade. The sequence presents a linear progression of scenes: the church where the trail began, the path leading to the mountain he climbed, a pause for drinking water, the summit view, the descent, and back to the house where he was staying. This self-documentation, originally intended for social media, reveals what permeates the experience of solitude. While hiking through breathtaking nature, Chefetz is occupied with "selling" himself in the virtual space, striving to feel desired and valid.

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Displayed upon the wallpaper is a photograph taken in the first house where Chefetz stayed when he first traveled with his mother to visit their family in France. It depicts the bed in the room where he slept, on the morning following his first night there. During the nights, he found respite from the performative presence required throughout the family gatherings. It was in these quiet moments, when he was truly alone, that recurring themes of his inner world surfaced; reflections that often emerge in the transition between the public self and the private intimacy that the night invites.