Environmental consciousness

GCO : Grand Contournement d’Opinion, 2018-2022

Several works from this research project stem from the orbital motorway to be built to the west of Strasbourg (GCO).

A first project emerged late in 2018 when building work for the GCO started close to my childhood home. An exhibition device has been devised to reflect on road, human and environmental networks. Photographs, video and sound recordings started being carried out on site as well as meetings with people who are favorable or unfavorable to the project, others not wishing to speak or even people who are not aware.

STUTZHEIM-OFFENHEIM, 11/11/2018

Installation, digital photographs, headphones

Three prints from montages of digital photographs (18.11.2018, 25.11.2018, 23.02.2019), 4961 x 3508 pixels, 42 x 29.7 cm

Sound composition from recordings of 4 interviews (Marie FRIEDRICH, Gilbert BRAIDA, Lysiane BRAIDA and Zadistes of Zone A (to) Defender (ZAD) of Kolbsheim), 27’57’’, in loop

This second project was exhibited as part of the exhibition “Dur-Ability ?” which took place at the Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre in the 14th arrondissement of Paris from 10 to 13 April 2019 with Simon Chemineau and Jessica Da Silva as part of a restitution of this research.

The western orbital motorway of Strasbourg (GCO), a project that first appeared in the 1970s, consists in the building of a 24km long toll road (in progress) in anticipation of completion by 2021. This is a motorway bypassing Strasbourg to the west through the rural area of Kochersberg (A355) to connect A4 motorway (from Paris to Strasbourg) with the junction between A35 and A352. This project costs more than 500 million euros and entails the destruction of forests and about 280 ha of agricultural land, i.e. about 691 football fields.

At a time when many scientists ring the alarm bell of global warming, the environment is here threatened by the destruction of natural areas and cultural heritage (the baroque gardens of the castle of Kolbsheim), to replace them with toll gates, noise, concrete and pollution.

The people, the concerned citizens are divided as to the construction of this motorway or its rejection. How about you ? Have you heard about the GCO ?

Transition, 2019

Installation, digital photographs, three prints from montages of digital photographs (18.11.2018, 25.11.2018, 23.02.2019), 4961 x 3508 pixels, 42 x 29.7 cm

HD video projection, color, sound, 11’22’'

Continuing this research on the GCO has led me to a return to earth : how can a landscape in transformation between destruction and reconstruction be modified and survive ? How can we, by building a motorway, harm a land, our nature, which is now sacred but desecrated ?

The photographic, videographic and sound recording media are questioned through movement and suspension, mise en abyme and trompe l’œil, as well as the question of the point of view, multiplication, the details and a reflection on the notion of inhabiting.

This video, articulated around a poem, shows a river close to the place where work is in progress. Interviews of people occur simultaneously with other videos of details where everyone spontaneously puts forward what the word “transition” brings to their mind.

RD41 entrecroisement COS, 2020

HD video, 2’44 ’’, color, sound

As the work continues, this video, similar to a documentary, questions the evolution and modification of the landscape from a temporal and spatial point of view. Departmental road 41 crossing my childhood village has now been partially destroyed and transformed into a bridge which will cross the GCO (COS : road's name) under construction. Time allows you to take a step back from the acts that humans perform on nature: the ephemeral scrolls and anchors or suspends it between visible and invisible, presence and disappearance. The fluctuations are captured here between construction, destruction and reconstruction.

Adieu, 2021

Performance (10.01.2021)

Video, photo and sound installation

This performance took place on 10th January 2021 in STUTZHEIM-OFFENHEIM, before the road with tarmac, of the Grand Contournement Ouest de Strasbourg (GCO) highway. This work is part of the Grand Contournement d'Opinion project (2018 - ...). Nine participants walked from the artist's childhood home to a highway under construction with empty pots. They chose an object they found on the highway to put in their pot, buried it under potting soil and sowed poppy seeds in it before returning home with their pots filled with seeds to grow. Photographs, videos and interviews retrace this artistic action between the extraction of an element and a possible second life.

With the participation of Louka ABOULADZE, Cyrielle BAUER, Nina DORSCHNER, Guillaume GONCALVES, Claudine LECLERC, Julie NIVEL, Jean-Charles SANCHEZ

10 KM, 2021

Performance (11.04.2021)

Videos, photographs and sounds installation

From KOLBSHEIM to STUTZHEIM, 10 kilometers. This performance-research will have respected the restriction imposed during the 3rd French lockdown concerning the distance from our home: Marie and the artist joined their family home to carry out a walk, a 10km walk via the Grand Contournement Ouest de Strasbourg highway which crosses their respective villages. Accompanied by their cameras and microphones, they made recordings, met multiple animals and curious passers-by, while counting the number of bridges and the progress of the work. Actively capturing images (films or photographs) and surrounding sounds, they moved from the earth to the tar, closing the performance with "A lunch on the asphalt".

With the participation of Marie FRIEDRICH.