A crossing between action painting and land art performance, Wool over Land deals with the notions of imaginary and real frontiers, as well as the links and knots between the two peoples.
At first there is the dream of a Bedouin
child, the vision of a wandering artist : to paint the desert : A wide
network of red woolen threads spread against the blue sky, floating a
few seconds before they fall on the yellow desert,
a canvas vast as the
world.
Not yet performed in the desert, Wool over Land was realized as a pre-figuration in Pontempeyrat (Massif Central).
A l’origine, peindre le désert
A French Jew born in Tunisia, therefore an “Arab Jew”, I feel
personally concerned and torn out
by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or any other
which questions some of the themes of my artistic practice :
the
relation to the Other, to oneself, to the world and their crises,
the
intimate self confronted to the violence of History.
I therefore conceived, as a complement to this purely visual performance, a second moment, seen as a possible metaphor for conflictual situations. Wool will be thrown from above ; once on the ground, the threads will become tangled up, knotted, and probably lost or broken in the site.
Women, men, youth, Palestinians, Israelis, French, etc., will
look for the threads and attempt to undo the ties.
Perhaps it will not
be possible to find all the wool, but everybody will help one another,
and, with gentleness, patience, time and love, maybe some will be able
to untangle some threads, and meet the other one,
holding the other end
of the thread.
"one day I will ask
to close ones eyes
to undo the ties of the day
and go together
toward an unknown place
far from reality
where are written every possibility
ferme les yeux
close you eyes and imagine…
"
(unknown author)
For the 13th Nomadic Stop, from September, 12 to18, 2012, Tadlachance receives JN September 15 : Untie the thread of wool and word, at the Library To undo the knots, and say what comes to the mind, this is to try and follow the thread that links one to the other, and first with oneself. Patient and modest exercise, and experience, maybe even meditation (the word "soufi" comes from wool, which was considered as a modest material) September 18 : Moving with wool and music, with the musician, Lucie Prodhomme
