Une histoire de famille
Candice Burnet
Une histoire de famille
cover: Abuela y Pipo, film photograph, 2021 La maison de Tullins, film photograph, 2021
This quote by Robert Filliou goes round and round in my head.
The porosity of the border between the private and the public, between what we keep inside us or what we share, is like a line crossing all my projects.
As with songs (a theme that I have developed in the booklet), the family is a field where these dynamics play out by questioning memory. The family is the link between the collective and the individual, Between shared memories or not, Between things forgotten or reborn.
I like to stage the daily life, Tell stories from reality. Play with, Dramatize life, Blur the border between reality and fiction, And, to come back to Robert Filliou, Make life art or art life.
I will tell you a story about memories, a story about forgotten childhood songs that reappear a story about holiday memories compiled on small video tapes a story about a roast in the kitchen a story about a house on the hill a story about footsteps in the attic, A family story
“Art is what makes life more interesting than art.”
A FAMILY STORY
MI CASITA DE PAPEL
(audio 01:29 min, broadcast from headphones connected to a phone)
I remembered the song my grandma used to sing to me: “Qué felices seremos los dos...”
I had forgotten it, It is funny how time makes things disappear and reappear. It came back to me like a dream.
I took the phone to call my grandma, But she had forgotten the song. So I sang it alone, Duplicating my voice to replace the gap, Overlaying the phone call, Memory traces had reappeared for one, And disappeared for the other. The memory of the casita de papel, The paper house, So fragile that it can disappear in a wind blow.
“QUÉ FELICES SEREMOS LOS DOS Y QUÉ DULCES LOS BESOS SERÁN PASAREMOS LA NOCHE EN LA LUNA VIVIENDO EN MI CASITA DE PAPEL” Sans titre, photographie argentique, Espagne, (2021)
https://soundcloud. com/user743120884/ mi-casita-de-papel
TA VOIX ME DIRA DES CONTES
(black and white video and audio loop show in a dark room))
A story about memories and songs, again
A lullaby before sleep, Today, sung by interposed WhatsApp voice messages with my mom. I have forgotten the lyrics, She remembers them. Once again to gather the voices, Recreate a link. My hands on my eyelids, Remember the movement, Close my eyes.
cf. Surrealist movies for the visual aesthetic as Luis Buñuel, Un chien andalou, 21 min, 1929
ESPAGNE ÉTÉ 2006
(film project still in progress)
I found the old camcorder, The one Dad used to film vacations with.
On one of the video tapes, Written with a ballpoint pen: ESPAGNE ÉTÉ 2006 Holidays in my aunt’s house Milagros, in Galicia, Collecting shells with my cousins on the rocks under an afternoon sun, Picnics at the river, under pines with family Sandcastles washed away by the sea.
I shared those found images with summer 2006 characters, Their voices replaced the sound of the videos.
They told me about their memories, About remains, Memories of a time when everything seemed bright, The only concern was to play.
But, now the wrought-iron swing in the garden is covered with rust Summer 2006 is over, Our family is broken into little pieces.
The forced laughs have been erased, Letting out the muffled noise of secrets.
I have often been there for two years, To find back the decor of summer 2006. I feel connected to this land, To the ocean, To the rivers. Around my neck, Always, Dad’s camcorder. To keep filming to remember, To preserve. Pipo the little bird eating the crumbs on the kitchen table.
In the mountain, Mom who tells The story of that day When her father did not recognize her And said to her “Bonjour Madame”.
Mom and Milagros, Who grew up apart, But with the same memory: The same song, But not the same melody.
Capturing those little moments of life
To tell the story of the family, Of a family, A story about memories, About things forgotten or hidden under the kitchen tablecloth, But which always end up reappearing in the middle of the waves. I pile video tapes up, The movie is not over It is alive It moves It keeps changing its shape Like life Like memories. I do not think I want to finish it yet.
cf. Christian Boltanski, Album de photos de la famille D., 1939-1964, 150 black and white prints framed in tinplate, 220 x 450 cm, 1971 Valérie Mréjen, L’année passée, video, 03:40 min, 2015 Julien Gallee-Ferre, Entre-temps, video, 21:46 min, 2016
There is something in the act of filming that brings you closer to life, which makes me think of Jonas Mekas’s quote:
“I live, therefore I make films. I make films, therefore I live”.
LE RÔTI
(video, 01:51 min, 2019)
A heated debate in the kitchen between my parents.
Is it a “a roast” or a “rosbeef”?
cf. Joël Bartoloméo, La tarte au citron, video 04:23 min, 1993
Richard Billingham’s photographs
The Belgian TV show/documentary series Strip-Tease created by Jean Libon and Marco Lamensch, 418 épisodes, 1985/2012
To film every day, put my phone in a corner of the kitchen to capture everyday scenes that will become stories. For me the camera is a way to tell my stories, embodying this border between the private and the public. It allows me to keep control, I am the one who sets the rules of the game, who decides what I film, the framing, the editing work . This is not reality, this is my vision of reality, this is a staged reality.The choice of the kitchen as a decor also interests me because it is an extremely intimate space, a space for discussions, for sharing.
UNTITLED
(oil on canvas, 115 x 143 cm, 2021)
At my parents’ house there is this kitsch wall painted representing a beach with palm trees, which has always fascinated me. Like a theater set Bringing the outside inside
cf. Roy Lichtenstein
David Hockney
Charlotte Keates
Il Y A QUELQUE PART UNE COLLINE
(performance, text reading and singing in front of two A5 watercolors)
Text written from memories
True
Or dreamed
PERFORMANCE TEXTE:
Il y a quelque part une colline Avec un portail en bois qui semble plonger dans le vide. Il y a quelque part une colline La colline des pique-niques en famille Et des chansons seule au coucher du soleil. Il y a quelque part une rangée de sapins bien alignés qui gardent la colline.
Fermer les yeux
Un courant d’air frais dans les poumons Esquissez un léger sourir
Le vieux tourne disque bleu pastel, celui qui marche avec des piles et que l’on peut emporter partout, Posé sur la nappe à carreaux vert. Les arbres qui dansent au son de la musique
Il y a quelque part une colline Où le temps semble s’être arrêté Avec le même portail en bois qui plonge dans le vide, Les même chansons
Les mêmes pique-niques Seul la couleur de la nappe a changée Les carreaux sont rouges désormais. Il y a quelque part une rangée de sapins bien alignés qui gardent toujours la colline.
Fermer les yeux
Un courant d’air frais dans les poumons Esquissez un léger sourir
Un verre de vin posé sur la nappe à carreaux rouge
La musique du feu de bois Et des poèmes chuchotés.
Il y a quelque part une une colline
Avec un portail en bois qui semble plonger dans le vide.
Mais, lorsque l’on s’approche, On aperçoit derrière le portail une petite maison en pierre avec Un toit en tuile rouge et Une cheminée fumante.
J’ai encore rêvé de la maison sur la colline, La même colline, Celle des pique-niques Des nappes à carreaux Et du tourne disque bleu.
Il y quelque part une colline qui vient plonger dans l’océan L’océan qui a voyagé pour venir la rejoindre. Il y a quelque part Toujours
La même rangée de sapins qui gardent la colline.
Fermer les yeux
Un courant d’air frais dans les poumons Esquissez un léger sourir
Une nappe à carreaux bleue Posée devant la maison en pierre Et Les Beatles qui chantent
But the fool on the hill, Sees the sun going down. And the eyes in his head, See the world spinning around.
SCREENPLAY FOR A MOVIE
(screenplay for a film that I will make one day maybe, or never)
2020 lockdown. Four months, at my parents’ houses
The house in this small country town.
A series of haïku written everyday from the situations, the people around me and the atmosphere prevailing in this closed and limited environment, gave birth to this script.
To put fiction into reality, Distort it.
Use the songs, (Still)
Reuse pop songs To tell stories.
A kind of musical mixing a thriller and a fantasy-like atmosphere, between dream and reality
A young girl in a flower dress
A small suburbia where everything seems perfect
Too perfect
A burning sky
Floral wallpaper
An old TV
A woman in a suit
A man in overalls
Heavy footsteps every night in the attic
cf. Sadie Benning, It wasn’t love, video, 20:00 mins, (1992)
Sadie Benning, A Place Called Lovely, video, 13:55 mins, (1991)
Brian De Palma, Phantom of the Paradise, film, 92 min, 1974
François Ozon, Huit Femmes, film, 111 min, 2002
Nadia Lee Cohen’s photographs
Delphine Balley, Figures de cire, exhibition, photographs and videos, curator: Agnès Violeau, MACLyon, September 15, 2021 -, January 2, 2022
Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One’s Own
“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”.1
1 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
LINKS:
MI CASITA DE PAPEL
audio 01:29 min, broadcast from headphones connected to a phone https://soundcloud.com/user-743120884/ mi-casita-de-papel
next page: Untitled, film photograph, 2021
TA VOIX ME DIRA DES CONTES
black and white video and audio loop show in a dark room https://drive.google.com/ file/d/1-EPJbIGCjpn5KozZY-oT2vExCXmi1PJX/view?usp=sharing
LE RÔTI
video, 01:51 min, 2019 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qnFz9x2HQoJSk3bRdbBk9Te4aCC60hJG/view?usp=sharing
Candice Burnet
candice.burnet@gmail.com https://soundcloud.com/user-743120884
