The program Landscapes-Afterwar(d)s is part of a continuous research on the memory of the places to the test of wars and conflicts. Landscapes are distinguished from nature insofar as they only exist through those who gaze upon them. A portion of nature is transformed into a representation, an image upon which one can gaze or meditate. Our perspective on them differs depending on the period or the culture. While nature itself is scarred by a violent past, how does the aftermath manifest on a landscape? How does a landscape that has seen crimes of a major scale offer a possibility of bearing witness to that history? Everywhere that conflicts have taken place, the question of landscape is essential in order to rip apart the layers of repressed memory that continue to manifest the reality of what has transpired in a diffuse way despite the passage of time. We will focus upon ways of appropriating a past that resists through representations of landscapes as they are reworked by means of contemporary art, cinema or literature.
Atelier-Laboratory Souvenirs and Landscapes : Paris - Phnom Penh 2017/18 with the University Paris 8