My encounter with urban art, graffiti,
happened with the arrival of Hip-Hop, actually.
And it became a huge movement
to which I felt relatively close.
In any case, in the themes addressed, the philosophies.
At the time, we talked about the Zulu Nation,
with its various pillars.
Jasm One is my artist name.
I was born in Geneva,
grew up in Valais,
and have been living in Lausanne
for over 15 years now.
My main goal
was to exist through art,
and graffiti was the first impulse
into the world of art in general.
Thanks to graffiti,
I was able to enter the art world,
which really opened my mind
and made me understand
what is an artwork?
An artist, their journey,
and how it brings
a much broader interest.
The peculiarity of my journey
is that since around 2002,
I have always
worked simultaneously on several projects
and in various fields.
I have always been hyperactive
in my activities,
both professionally and artistically.
This means that when I was
at school preparing for university,
I was also doing sports
at a high level,
organizing graffiti events,
and engaging in a lot of
street painting activities.
I'll give you an example
of a project called Art Valais,
the construction of the largest urban art museum
in the world.
We worked on it for 7 years,
and I asked the whole team
of photographers and videographers not to publish anything.
So, for 7 years,
you work, and even personally,
I didn't show my works for 7 years.
And it's only now
that we can release them.
October 28, 2016
that's when my life completely changed.
In life,
we generally have two ways to learn:
through observation,
by seeing the experiences of others,
or by living our own experiences.
You see someone touch a hot plate,
and you understand that you won't touch it.
When you ride a bike,
you fall,
and you learn.
We grow,
learn, and evolve
almost exclusively through difficulty
and obstacles.
And on October 28, 2016
that was the beginning of many obstacles.
From that moment on,
it was as if my children
had been taken away from me.
We often talk about
men who can create harm,
but we never talk about the people,
the men, the fathers
who are separated from their children
because the laws remain
in an archaic model.
That's what happened to me.
At that moment, I had nothing to lose.
In such a situation, you have two choices:
either you sink,
or you turn lead into gold.
This means that from this difficulty,
this obstacle that will last a long time,
you draw all your resources and
do everything you want to do.
I am inspired by what surrounds me:
nature, people,
and also cultures.
History
and everything I can learn
throughout my existence.
There is a whole series of projects
that I have had the chance to create.
It started in 2002
with a first free wall,
500 square meters
in the city where I grew up,
and it is still the most painted wall
by graffiti artists
20 years later.
From that wall, we moved on to a festival,
and from that festival,
we created the first legal graffiti network in Europe.
So, in 2008,
I opened a network
of walls where people can graffiti freely,
at least a portion of the walls,
and it covers 3000 square meters, which is enormous.
Today, we are opening
the largest urban art museum in the world.
This museum
spans the entire territory of Valais,
the Swiss alpine canton that is 50 times the size of Paris.
We created about fifty works,
all inspired by the local DNA
and addressing the theme of water.
This means that each work
functions in the environment
where it was created.
An artist from Berlin
who comes here and creates their work,
their work will function in the village
because it will speak to the local culture
and issues.
This is the strength of this project
and also what defines my identity.
When I talked about the trace
and connection,
connection is the second point
that is extremely important in my work.
The idea is to connect people,
bring artists,
engage with the population,
and link people together.
Today,
I do this
in my artistic work
with a project called
The Lines of Soul.
It emphasizes the line,
because what is a line, after all?
It's a starting point
and an endpoint.
A line connects two points,
which can be two people,
a beginning, an end.
For me,
it is the best symbol of our existence.
With a single stroke,
you can tell so many things.
The Lines of Soul
really focuses on the concept of lines
and connections.
It's also about showing what we don't see,
revealing the invisible.
The origin of this is obviously the tag,
graffiti
because each line is the skeleton
of a letter,
a movement.
Today, it has become a work
that can go as much into abstraction
and contemplation.
It uses
only one tool
and one type of paint.
The particularity
is the use of metallic ink,
which, for me, has provided a solution.
How do you capture the sun,
capture the light?
The theme of light
is something that is found
in the history of art,
in most techniques,
as well as the subjects
of painters from all times.
Through The Lines of Soul,
it's a way of capturing light
using metallic ink
the artwork changes
with the reflection of the sun.
If you are a child or an adult,
you won't see it from the same angle.
If it's sunny,
cloudy, or raining,
the artwork will change.
When you face the artwork
or move to the side,
you will see new elements.
The artwork changes in color.
It's a chameleon artwork,
as it can be gray
or golden
with the same ink.
The artwork relies
on its surroundings.