Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin's 'I belong to the ship' on view at musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux

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Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin's 'I belong to the ship' on view at musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Je suis du bord / I belong the Ship, 2016.



BORDEAUX.- Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin have worked together since 1999, experimenting with forms as varied as films, performances, photographs and sound pieces, on a number of different projects, often in collaboration with professionals from other fields: like lawyers, storytellers and auctioneers. They call their creations “monsters”, works where, through imprecision, hesitations and surprises, we become aware of the stratagems people willingly adopt to subvert their own language and form. The questioning of the individual’s relationship to a territory of their own, a country, region or professional activity, is the focus of their two films, Manmuswak (2005) and La Nouvelle Kahnawaké (2010). In 2012, they created L’Échiqueté [“Chequered Chess”], a variant on the game of chess, which highlights the paradoxical situation of the half-caste in colonial history, as well as the ambiguous situation of the politically committed artist in the field of contemporary art.

In their new video installation Je suis du bord / I Belong to the Ship Bernier and Martin study how an unconscious feeling towards history is subtly reflected in people’s behaviour, by juxtaposing bodily gestures of the visitors at the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes with those of the passengers of a cruise ship, a monument to consumerism.

The first video shows images, shot by the artists at the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in their hometown of Nantes. The footage is inspired by two stories in which a Caribbean protagonist makes a sea voyage and in both narratives, the presence of this character on the ship reveals social tensions, as if indicating a bad consciousness and a lack of consensus regarding the past of racial subordination. The main character in The Nigger of the Narcissus , written in 1897 by Joseph Conrad, is James Wait, a man from the West Indies who works as a sailor on a merchant ship sailing from Bombay to London at the end of the 19th Century.

The title of the installation, Je suis du bord / I Belong to the Ship is a quote borrowed from James Wait, the answer that Wait gives to the chief mate when asked to explain himself after calling out ‘Wait!’, arriving late when the ship embarks. His family name hints at the fact that slaves got peculiar names after being freed. In Conrad’ story Wait becomes ill during the journey and while one part of the crew believes he is truly ill, the other members of the crew suspect that Wait is faking illness. In Édouard Glissant’s 1993 novel, Tout-monde , on the other hand, the main character Raphaël Targin, a steerage passenger on the liner Colombie sailing from Fortde-France to Le Havre, gets the exceptional opportunity to enjoy the luxuries of the passengers in first class since most passengers on the ship fall ill and he becomes an exception. In both stories, illness creates a breach of hierarchical structure and becomes a leveling factor that allows for a transgression of the normal order while at the same time making the order visible again.

The second video was shot in 2011 when Patrick Bernier took a budget cruise called ‘La Croisière des Echecs’ on the Mediterranean. Images of leisurely relaxation are animated by six music tracks by experimental composers from Nantes Charrier, Richard and Secq that inspired the video and also structure its temporality. Through the presence of the haunting music, the images become contemplative and a second, more sinister, reading unfolds. This is an interpretation that reminds of historical sea travel and creates a space to reflect on the social hierarchy on the ship as well as refugee trafficking in the Mediterranean Sea. Acting like seasickness, the music reverses the relationship of who is subordinated to who, on a background of images of a crew obeying orders while at the same time being in charge, as if leading the way to a final destination. This interpretation of the footage opens up to another possible translation of the word ‘échec’, since it also means ‘failure’ in French.

While both sites are touristic, they each have an opposite designation and the artists add complexity to both; the Memorial, a place meant for contemplation is made lighter by the humanity of the visitors moving through the space, while reversely, the images of the cruise ship get a more serious connotation due to the heavy music that gives tempo to both videos. The ambivalence that becomes apparent in the installation reflects the question of complicity of those who play a role in economic oppression both today and in the past, and add a layer to a more complete reading of a history told with much hesitation.










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