A few houses down from my grandmother’s house towards the southern tip, there was one who lived with Jean and Lisette Vidament. As children, we would go to their house to stock up on butane bottles. When he heard our cart creaking, he would start dancing and we could hear him shouting, “You want some gas?” I seem to remember that he was a Gris du Gabon.
There was also Paul Amaudru, who lived freely and ate breakfast with his family. Bread, butter, and a bowl of coffee. When he found Paul a little too restless, he would say, “SHUT UP, PAUL!”
John told me he had seen one near Porz Doun. The bird had probably escaped from a merchant ship passing offshore… The men on the island were also almost all merchant sailors and brought back all kinds of “souvenirs” from their long voyages. The parrot was an animal torn from its natural habitat, kept out of interest because of its fascinating intelligence. It is also an entertaining pet, and one can imagine that children deprived of their fathers during the long months at sea deserved the joy of spending time with these playmates. That is why there are so many stories about parrots here in Ouessant.
When I was offered this residency, I immediately thought it would be a good idea to invite the residents. Many of them only know the semaphore from the outside. The building’s architecture exaggerates the relationship between inside and outside, as its function is to monitor, observe, see far away, and signal. I wanted to invite them in for coffee every day, so that this place could become theirs again, a space for exchange and discussion. The watch room, stripped of its functions, has become a contemplative space. In order for our exchanges to produce a narrative beyond the here and now, I had the intuition that a powerful “object” needed to be introduced. Searching through my memories and gleaning a few anecdotes, the figure of the parrot appeared several times.
This bird is also a receiver-transmitter, in other words, an imitator. The people of Ouessant use words and expressions that are specific to the island. It is a mixture of Breton and French with a strong accent, sometimes originating from maritime professions or the island’s unique circumstances. These expressions and words are tending to disappear as the island changes. I had the idea that the parrot would be both the mediator and the recorder of our discussions.
I found a young blue-fronted Amazon. It arrived in Ouessant a few days before the residency and at the same time as the announcement of a second lockdown. I could keep it but without welcoming visitors. The semaphore became its living space, which I arranged to make it feel as comfortable as possible. To do this, I used local resources (reeds, willow branches, walnut branches, bamboo, fig branches) to create a playground with a panoramic view. Locked in this transparent tower, we learned to live together, with only nature’s activity before us.
