In 2021, I received the unexpected invitation from Finis Terrae – Centre d’art insulaire – to travel as soon as possible to the island of Ouessant for a one-month residency at the Créac’h semaphore.
Three days and a few hours later, here I was on the island, returning from errands, with two bags, fumbling my way through the fog. The lighthouse and its semaphore stood nearby, but everything beyond thirty meters disappeared into the mist. When the view finally cleared, silence gave way to an uninterrupted sound: an almost nonexistent sense of auditory spatial perception.
An intensive experience began immediately—an encounter with myself and the earth. Convinced I was standing on a vast body, I reconnected with the instincts and perceptions that ground me as an animal of this world above all else. Contradictory sensations quickly arose, spreading between uncertainty and newfound confidence, fear and transcendence, restless nights and moments of wonder. The relentless forces of nature and a sense of intrusion overlapped with my fascination for Greek thrillers, shaping words, images, and sounds that would fuel a long period of research.
Between the pale light of day and the glowing beams of night, amidst the white noise, my senses became blurred; reality felt both raw and uncertain. The final project would take the form of an installation hosting a reimagined cine-concert.
June 9
4:30 PM
(…) All the vegetal textures—are they really?
They seem like the fur of unknown animals, without dimension.
Backs, sleeping bellies on the surface.
Sometimes silky, sometimes brushed the wrong way.
It feels like walking on a body without bones.
I move carefully, afraid to harm, afraid to wake it.
A soft skin that doesn’t collapse, that supports my own body.
With every step, it exhales, hollows, inhales as I move forward,
swells and pushes me toward another step.
Birds hide in this fur, invisible yet singing.
A few tufts, an empty shell as the only trace.
It reminds me of a memory from Tuscany.
I didn’t expect to find fragments of that journey in a place so different and far away.
Crossing the Val d’Orcia, the ridges looked so much like the bristling fur on the backs of savanna animals, zebras or hyenas.
The slopes of the hills shared their colors.
With the car’s speed, it almost felt like the movement of bodies.
Here, it’s more brown and green, strange animals.
There, it was a vast body stretched over kilometers.
Here, it intertwines; different bodies can be guessed.
Here, no cars, only the wind.
It quivers.
I see its secretions, its spasms, a barely-there breath.
I hear its birds, its insects, sometimes its humans.
Nothing allows itself to be captured,
least of all the light that reveals them, constantly changing.
There’s no use chasing the mist, the patches of sunlight, the glimmers, the wind.
One must stay, wait for it all to evaporate or emerge once more.
Mathis – “…poetry is the beauty of what is missing”
(…) 8:30 PM
I waited for the sun to set over the sea, but it did not return.
September 16
11 AM
Without seeing clearly,
a substance in which the body can lose itself,
as if to disappear, to dissolve,
a matter that makes me an animal on alert.
So you don’t feel me approaching,
so you don’t see me.
So you forget my touch
and I forget your intrusion.
(…)
And all the emptiness beneath,
and all the life beneath.
A dizzying awareness.
9:30 PM
My body shares the water of this immense expanse.
If I wanted to give it back, I would be nothing but a lost mood.
And I would return to the wind that passes through me, a final breath.
I was looking for a Greek thriller, but now I’m hesitating.
10:30 PM
The sea has almost finished swallowing the small dark foams.
My mind eagerly awaits this disappearance,
which will carry away the final twitches of a morbid imagination.
The waves’ absorbing motion reminds me of dunes
and of snakes burying themselves in the sand with organic undulations.
4 PM
I came back inside as a wave of heat intensified in my ears.
The constant voice of the sea has polished my eardrums.
It feels warm when I touch them.
The birds swirl between the tall grasses,
letting a foot or a wing peek into the open air,
escaping one another.
[…] The repeated union of pearls (the teeth) and coral (the lip) forms the coral pearls,
and the same mark made several times becomes the Necklace of Pearls.
On a tiny piece of skin, a bite pinched with two teeth forms a dot,
and the same mark made repeatedly becomes the Necklace of Dots.
Two necklaces on the neck, the armpits, the hips,
on the forehead, on the thighs too,
a necklace of dots.
Like a prominent and irregular circle above the breasts, it is the Stretched Cloud…
“Techniques of Bites,” Kâmasûtra, exactly like a wild horse – Sanskrit translation, adaptation, and presentation by Frédéric Boyer – P.O.L.
On the path, more debris again, fragmented bodies.
Today, it’s death I encounter.
In this ecosystem, it is not hidden from anyone’s eyes.
A living being crossed paths with death and
stopped right where they met.
As if the body, once dead, were worth nothing more,
a fragile shell,
offered.
The Hindus must have observed animals a great deal before speaking.
Perhaps they remember the animals they are.
Being here, I remember.
The sound of the sea muffles other noises,
and when everything empties, I feel alert.
In the middle of the sea, if I am here,
a predator could be too.
Always the same one.
6 PM
The water calls me to it,
a physical pull,
one more step,
another moment.
Drawn to stay, yet disturbed by survival.
Terrifying
Terrible
Terror
Overcome
Why do all these words of dread
share their root in the earth (terre)?
When the earth loses its grip on the body,
it sends a jolt,
a shiver of fear.
One more minute.
I retrace my steps, but I don’t go inside yet.
The semaphore is at my back.
One more minute.
