![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Claude-Eigan.jpeg\")
Claude Eigan, Untitled. Photography by Maansi Jain<\/p>\n Claude Eigan, Untitled. Photography by Maansi Jain<\/p>\n
\nThough she stepped away from the drudgery of 40-hour week office life in 2012, many of Claude Eigan\u2019s artworks examine elements of the mundane in the workplace. As they say: you can take the girl out of work but you can\u2019t make her stop making work about work – even if artwork overtime is largely unpaid.
\nThe Berlin based French artist\u2019s recent piece, \u201c…Like Pepsi Cola\u201d is a \u201cportrait series\u201d that uses a publically exposable human feature to shed a cheeky light on the lack of women in the Harvard Business Review list of top performing CEOs. She makes you laugh while being officially PG rated and making you think about the mothers of these men and the strange and exclusionary workplace environments that engender these kinds of uneven lists.
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![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Claude-Eigan2.jpeg\")
Claude Eigan, \u201c…Like Pepsi Cola\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTaking more from notes from the second home of office goers for her upcoming solo show, Claude Eigan mused on her time as a graphic designer in San Francisco. She describes taking meetings in large, soulless rooms, listening to the ocean and the seabirds, as if she were describing an aquarium where the fish are the only snorkelers. Human presence is not required here; in fact, it\u2019s rather discouraged because human bodies would disturb the sleepiness of the scene. \u201cI would find myself in these big conference rooms that in most cases lack any soul and identity,\u201d Claude says. \u201cYet you could hear the sea coming from outside, which is a weird experience because at the same time these rooms are so isolated and made for you to focus.\u201d
\nImagining herself a witness to fallow spaces created for humans, Claude has been working on a new series of sculptures that transmute objects. These were almost \u201ctoo generic to be noticed\u201d as she found them in their original habitats: conference rooms and office buildings.
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![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Claude-Eigan3.jpeg\")
Claude Eigan, Untitled. Photography by Maansi Jain<\/p>\n
![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Claude-Eigan4.jpeg\")
Claude Eigan, Untitled. Photography by Maansi Jain<\/p>\n
![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Claude-Eigan_Studio.jpeg\")
Claude Eigan in her studio. Photography by Maansi Jain<\/p>\n
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\nThe voice conferencing sound station has become a stingray and the wires make for animated tails. She considers what life may form in a dead zone: \u201cthe conference phone becomes useless but its actual shape becomes apparent,\u201d she says. \u201cThe conference room becomes a place where everything is slowly evolving, following its own rhythm, its own rules.\u201d The metaphor is not unintentional. Efficiency and order are eschewed for a fluid experience of a meeting room when it is not in use. And whether you, personally, heard the tree fall doesn\u2019t really matter because Claude is more interested in the life in landscapes that have no human presence.
\nPerhaps, it is for that reason Claude keeps a studio in the east Berlin neighbourhood of Lichtenberg, where she can choose whether she sees a human face or not on any given day. Surrounded by car dealerships and many, many gas stations, Claude says: \u201cthis area is still defined as an \u2018industrial area\u2019 so that means no restaurants or bars can be there, which can be a little bit annoying…\u201d But on the plus side that’s also what stokes her drive to work work work.
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\nClaude Eigan\u2019s “Comfort Zone”,<\/em> curated by Kerstin Godschalk, is at HB55\u2019s L\u2019espace de L\u2019espece<\/a>, Berlin, from 8 July to 21 July 2016<\/strong> \n
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