Embedded between wounds and scars, the scabs—granular, itchy, ugly—allow us to see and feel the effects of potential repair. They form through friction, due to the proliferation of fibrinous filaments that overflow from the lesion. Beneath them, connective tissue cells work in the center of the wound; broken blood vessels take shape there. But how can we explain the uncontrollable itching that, following a shock, prompts us to attack our own body while it is working overtime to recompose itself? Scratching the surface of this question brings to light the guiding intuition of the exhibition, situated on the border between attraction and repulsion. Returning to the history of words is perhaps one way to make sense of the things they represent. From the Latin crusta, “crust” is that which envelops or covers, notably when speaking of bread or a wound. From the 18th century, in France, the word emerged in the field of art to describe bad paintings, old and worthless. “Scab,” in English, comes from the Middle Dutch, schabbe, which denotes women of so-called “loose” morals. Listening to these words, with their contradictory sounds, suggests the cultural and social assignments that result from them and that stick to the surfaces. “Crusts” then designates those who trouble the boundaries—between inside and outside, good and evil—demarcations intended to be hermetic for the sake of care and propriety. Scabs thus arouse rage, disgust, and annoyance. Echoing this, the study of scabs could be brought closer to the political and aesthetic work carried out by “feminist killjoys” 1 . According to the philosopher Sara Ahmed, this figure, which has become an archetype, fully assumes that in order to exist, it is sometimes necessary to irritate, transgress, and, in doing so, indicate what is wrong or no longer working. Building on this ongoing investigation, the Scabs exhibition is a foray into the physical and symbolic lives of scabs that disturb, itch, and exceed. The constellation of works brought together for this occasion—including three new productions—in turn summons overflowing textures, techniques, and affects. Made of organic, plastic, and poetic materials, the pieces in Scabs invite audiences to consider scabs as thresholds—those pivotal spaces of radical negotiations: those that work to find life in residues, gentleness in vivid and latent violence, and connection in limbo. If Sara Ahmed positions the spoilsports at the heart of a project of social transformation that will undoubtedly be innervated, uncomfortable, and invasive, this exhibition attempts to reveal its delicate and thorny forms—scabrous, in themselves.