modern and ancient

I distinctly remember telling you I went to Nîmes for a few days, I just forgot to upload the scans of the film I took. Previously, although I've been told it's a great city it's only ever meant one thing to me, namely Radiohead. Twice actually. Sigh. 

We were staying in an bizarre 80s villa of pale blue and beige florals, feasting on crisps and white wine in bed while watching The Wild Thornberrys on youtube. There was an incident involving dried lotus pods but it will take too long to tell. It was very funny though. While Milla did her exams I had a blissful time wandering the streets, stopping regularly for tea in the sunny and leafy cafés, to read the map, jot down notes and get hopelessly and utterly lost. I went to the Carré d'Art, but much to my annoyance I wasn't allowed to take photographs of the exhibition, which was a crying shame. Choreographies Suspendues was a superb collection of  work by contemporary Vietnamese artists. Nguyen Thai Tuan's paintings were so moving, charged with sadness and loneliness and I loved Lena Bui's drawings. Well, at least I can show you Norman Foster's building which is nothing to be sniffed at.

Directly opposite Carré d'Art is the Roman Maison Carré

In fact, if you ever wondered what have the Romans done for us? Nîmes is your go-to place. Personally I'd rather hang with the Ancient Greeks and their love of art, music and Bacchanalian feasting, I can't be doing with that self-agrandising, slave-abusing, over-inflated egomaniac Augustus Caesar but even so...

The ancient Arena and inside the Temple of Diana a gigantic pin d'alep leaning 45° after centuries of wind battering...

Beautiful public gardens...

...and quite the most weird Natural History museum I've ever seen. Like a 19th century wunderkammer of skeletons, very badly stuffed and stitched animals, things in pickle jars and test tubes, dioramas that convince no-one, ethnological trophies and the relics of slavery. And I have to say, the funkiest of smells. I mean a really stomach lurching formaldehyde and decaying leather cocktail. But it was worth it just to see it all rammed in there, with the original little handwritten labels behind old chipped wood and dirty glass cabinets, in all it's horrifying and intriguing glory.

 {Pentax Spotmatic/Fujifilm400}
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Neglect

Clearly once much-loved but now suffering from the owner's lack of time to nurture and tend. Pots of the dried out and dead; wild plants reclaiming the land back from the cultivated; the fickleness of weather bleaching out colour and encouraging rusting, a grey bloom and encrustation. Like my beloved cameras gathering dust and my fridge now containing more food than film. 

{Pentax Spotmatic/Expired Fujifilm 400}

Ghosts

I'm picking up where I left off here. I suppose the jig is up, I am indeed on an 'art' hiatus. Voluntary or involuntary I'm not quite sure, but I often fall in and out of love with my work and right now I'm just not feeling it.

Let's just say that sometimes life takes you off in certain directions and in my experience it's best to go with the flow. My herbal medicine/herb garden are such an immersive project, both exciting and exhausting me. Nearing the end of my studies now I suppose I should perhaps think about direction. Also, did I tell you my husband had another accident? 

For now, I take photographs when I feel like it. That's good enough for me. Remember the thing I had where I picked up old cameras with exposed and undeveloped films still inside that I then process? Yup, I still keep a look out for them and I found a Pentax PC35 not so long ago. More ghosts of the past revealing themselves. I'm happy to liberate them yet I feel quite sad too, for exactly what I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps I can but I can't put it into words.

desertion

{Yashica 35-ME/Ilford FP4+}

Perturbations

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at Les Abattoirs, Toulouse. Sound and vision, performances without performers. A helium balloon producing a soundwave; a drumkit played by an intermittant waterfall and 3 motorised pianos skimming each other, their movement governed by the viewers position. Do spare 2 minutes of your life to watch this.

Human Nature

After a 2 year ~ 2 year? really? hiatus, Monica and I have undertaken another double exposure project. Started last summer (her) and completed last week (me) we merged landscapes and environments with people from our opposite countries. Lots of misalignment of film has given us some crazy but appealing results.

You can see the whole project on our shared blog 45N61W,  love to know what you think!