Cet autre paysage
Cet autre paysage
Installation, various media & participatory project
France, Tunisia, Germany
work in progress
‘Cet autre paysage’ (This Other Landscape) is an installation composed of various elements.
On one side, a video installation, projected in a loop on a ‘landscape format’ composed of earth and sand on the ground. The video shows three images of the artist standing still in landscapes that form part of her biography. The position of the body reflects the direction of writing in the language of the country in which each scene was filmed (France, Germany, and Tunisia). Positioning the body within the landscape is an act that reflects the imprint that the landscape leaves on the body. This is because it is not only a visual memory, but also a sensory, auditory and olfactory experience. The images appear, disappear and overlap, creating new landscapes.
The installation also features a sound collection bench consisting of landscape descriptions recorded by volunteers. Each person who contributed describes a landscape that holds a special place in their memory. These landscapes may be from childhood, everyday life, or somewhere extraordinary. All of these landscapes, which make up our collective and individual imagination, are destined to disappear or transform.
The third element of the installation will soon be created by the artist and will consist of a 2-metre screen print on fabric that will echo these stories. It will be composed of various elements extracted from these descriptions, in the manner of a collective map.
This project is an homage to landscapes, exploring how our perception of them is influenced by our cultures, histories and relationship with nature.
Video stills
Excerpts from collected landscape narratives (work in progress):
A garden of red clay.
A blue wooden door opening onto the beach.
A sea of oil.
Pomegranate trees.
Gashes in the landscape.
A rather grey landscape.
It feels as though we weren’t in Tunisia.
This vastness, this view stretching as far as the eye can see.
We reach the rocks and the final stretch.
We have to clear a path with our hands.
Landscapes for me are always framed by a train window.
The snow absorbed the sound, the colours; it’s almost monochrome.
The soundscapes of the forest are completely still and dark at night (…) and so loud and present at midday.
On the right-hand side of the road stood pine trees so warped by the wind (…), that they had all grown to the right.
A damp meadow where, as a child, I used to disappear right into it.
Preliminary sketches based on the landscape accounts that have been collected (work in progress):
Elma Riza 