30/01/2016

Marianne Faithfull - 'There Is A Ghost'







There is a ghost
And it goes out
On the land
On the land

It's lifted up
It feels and flows
On many hands
On many hands


Oh, my lover
Oh, my lover
Never was there another
Where has my loverman gone


There is a dream
You've had before
And forgot many times
So many times

When you remember who I am
Just call
When you remember who I am
Just call

When you remember who I am
Just call
When you remember who I am


There is a tree
But its leaves have gone
For what it seem
It stands alone


Oh, my lover
Oh, my lover
Gonna, gonna find another
Where has my loverman gone


Away, away
Across the land
Across the land
Across the land









"Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art". 
Susan Sontag
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"I Know" (music has my heart)



Ah, dear music, every song we love is a memory of us at the time we encountered it...

You are under my skin and became my most faithful mirror.

I love you so much, music, you have my heart.










"I Know"

So be it, I'm your crowbar
If thats what I am so far
Until you get out of this mess
And I will pretend
That I dont know of your sins
Until you are ready to confess
But all the time, all the time
I'll know, I'll know


And you can use my skin
To bury your secrets in
And I will settle you down
And at my own suggestion,
I will ask no questions
While I do my thing in the background
But all the time, all the time
i'll know, I'll know
Baby-I can't help you out, while she's still around

So for the time being, I'm being patient
And amidst this bitterness
If you'll consider this-even if it dont make sense
All the time - give it time


And when the crowd becomes your burden
And you've early closed your curtains,
I'll wait by the backstage door
While you try to find the lines to speak your mind
And pry it open, hoping for an encore


And if it gets too late, for me to wait
For you to find you love me, and tell me so
It's ok, dont need to say it



28/01/2016

Undigested memories: Dublin, mid-January 2016



 Lots of work in the cold winter. This season will never get my full approval. 

I'm overloaded with articles, reports and more to write, and there's more work to come, so I'm still not over the past two weeks. I still feel I need to dig more into all the events I went through, the balance between enlightening discoveries and harsh disappointment.

Because I post here mostly visuals and don't want to bore anybody with unfinished texts and imperfect ideas, here is a selection of images from the exhibitions I caught in Dublin on and around my birthday.

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First, Francis Bacon obviously: his London studio as transferred at the Hugh Lane Gallery










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Second:

IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, for the strikingly well-timed exhibition entitled 'What We Call Love'. 

What We Call Love: From Surrealism to Now

Featuring modern and contemporary masterworks from the world’s leading collections by Abramović, Brancusi, Dalí, Duchamp Ernst, Giacometti, Oppenheim, Picasso, Warhol, Yoko Ono, and many more.
12 September 2015 –  7 February 2016

















Pablo Picasso, Le Baiser: 









André Breton, French poet and writer I read every day from 1997 to 2000... On Love, surrealism language and the meaning of life:






Salvador Dali's version of two beings in love and in dreams...






Brassai's photographies of love-infused graffiti:



Annette's Messager's message on my birthday:






"New Faith Love Song", on unrequited love - second message for my birthday:





Where disused radio sets meet the pirate's chest of a forgotten passion. Or Pandora's box?










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The museum's beautiful garden:








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Third:

Another day, a non birthday? Another birthday it was indeed, and a day dedicated to the search for a photography's gallery - so easily found. I like quests... 






Just next to Dublin's Film Centre:







That day was the opening day for a new exhibition dedicated to Bob Dylan's early years, 1961-64. Here is is photographed with unforgettable writer James Baldwin, in New York:





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To be continued... 



London calling: painting, Auerbach, Tate Modern


A bit more of England for the winter...
Before Italy in the spring.

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Frank Auerbach
Tate Britain: Exhibition
9 October 2015 – 13 March 2016



For half a century Auerbach has lived and worked in the same part of London, in Camden Town, one of the major subjects of his work. ‘What I wanted to do was to record the life that seemed to me to be passionate and exciting and disappearing all the time.’
Painting 365 days a year, he has continued discarding what he does, scraping back the surface of the canvas to start and re-start the painting process daily, continuing afresh for months or years until the single painting is realised in a matter of hours, having finally surprised him, seeming true and robust.
This part of London is my world. I’ve been wandering around these streets for so long that I’ve become attached to them and as fond of them as people are to their pets
Frank Auerbach
Curator of the exhibition and selector of the last two rooms, Catherine Lampert, has had a long working relationship with Auerbach, and has sat for him in his studio every week for 37 years. This exhibition shows that whilst he continually paints the same sitters and sometimes returns to a particular London location, each painting can be considered for its own merits rather than be judged by style or period.
shocking and brilliant…get smacked in the face by the terrifying glory of the world Auerbach is stunned by every morning, ****
The Guardian
Frank Auerbach’s work emerges in all its rude, raw power in this astonishing new retrospective, ****
The Telegraph
At his best Auerbach is without doubt our greatest living painter because he captures the soul, ****
The Times
This is an excellent exhibition that any fan of painting should visit – a fitting tribute to a world class artist and his significant career, ****
The Londonist
*****
The Evening Standard
A unique exhibition on a unique artist.
HuffPost
****
City Am
Auerbach has won his long tussle with paint and reality, again and again. With this exhibition, he joins the masters.
The Spectator
****
The Independent
Many magnificently memorable images stand up for themselves in this great show
The Financial Times
Frank Auerbach has become our greatest living artist
The Sunday Times



Massive Attack - new single: Tricky & 3D - 'Take It There'



I have been thinking of ghosts and vampires while listening to the first drops of sounds from this track... Relevent video.

Also reunion from past friends / foes...



'Take It There'






Video directed by Hiro Murai and starring John Hawkes.

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Massive Attack have released Ritual Spirit, an EP containing four songs, including this 'Take It There' featuring Tricky.

The others tracks include collaborations with Young Fathers, Roots Manuva, and Azekel. 

According to most of the music press, a second EP, written and co-produced by Daddy G, is coming in Spring, with an album to follow later this year.



25/01/2016

Banksy for Calais (yes, again)


Thank you to our favourite English (Bristolian) street artist for telling "our" government how appalling it is.

New Banksy in London, in front of the French Embassy (from Banksy's FB page):




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I'll be in Calais in February with a new local Parisian charity. You can contribute here:

http://fr.ulule.com/dici-dailleurs/


More about the groupe, in French:


D'ici & d'ailleurs - Action de soutien 

aux réfugiés


Ensemble, apportons notre soutien aux migrants et réfugiés de Calais & Grande Synthe
Le projet ? Venir en aide aux migrants et réfugiés, bien souvent des familles et enfants en bas âges, dans les camps du Nord de la France (Calais & Grande Synthe)

Livia Saavedra, Photographe ©

Contexte

La Jungle de Calais : 4500 réfugiés et migrants vivent dans "l'insalubrité" avec l'espoir de passer la frontière vers le Royaume-Uni, via le port ou le tunnel sous la Manche. Une multitude de nationalités se retrouvent « bloqués » dans ce squat à ciel ouvert, une grande majorité sont des réfugiés.
Parmi eux, des kurdes en majorités fuyant l’avancée de Daesh en Irak, des syriens cherchant refuge en Europe abandonnant un pays détruit par une guerre qui dure depuis maintenant 5 ans, des érythréens qui ont pu s’évader d’une dictature complètement fermée.  

On compte également un nombre important de migrants venus de pays africain tel que le Soudan, fuyant des conditions de vie très difficile avec peu ou pas d’accès aux besoins vitaux de base.
La situation des migrants et réfugiés sur ce camp calaisien est dénoncée par de nombreuses associations comme "insalubre" et manquant de "dignité". La "jungle" a été ouverte au printemps 2015, pour libérer le centre-ville de Calais de ses multiples camps informels de candidats à l'exil, présents depuis la fermeture en 2002 du centre d'hébergement de la Croix-Rouge à Sangatte, de l'autre côté de la ville.

Fin octobre, la population du camp atteignait un pic 6000 personnes. Un afflux qui s'explique principalement par la difficulté de rejoindre le Royaume-Uni, renforcée notamment par la lutte contre les passeurs, ou les nombreux travaux de sécurisation récents du site d'Eurotunnel et de la rocade pour les camions se rendant au port de Calais. 

Plusieurs associations, ONG ou volontaires interviennent dans la zone, et parmi les plus actives, Médecins du monde et Médecins sans Frontière, ou des associations calaisiennes comme Salam et l'Auberge des migrants.

Grande Synthe, commune située au nord de Calais près de Dunkerque, un terrain à moitié boisé, à moitié marécageux sur lequel sont installées des centaines de tentes de camping, les arceaux plantés directement dans plusieurs centimètres de boue. On dénombre entre 2500 et 3000 personnes dont environ 300 enfants dont des bébés de moins d’un an.  Les 2 500 hommes, femmes et enfants du camp doivent se partager 48 douches. Contrairement à Calais où des cabanes ont pu être construites pour l’accueil des réfugiés, le « camp » de Grand Synthe n’est composé uniquement que de tentes et bâche en plastiques.

Au-delà des opinions politiques, notre action porte essentiellement sur une réponse humaine à apporter à ces personnes qui se retrouvent démunies dans un « camp » de transit dans un des pays les plus riches au monde qui ne répond pas aux normes standards internationales d’accueil aux réfugiés ou demandeurs d’asile.  Notre pays pourfendeur mondial des droits de l’homme ne propose que peu ou pas de réponse humanitaire à ces réfugiés les laissant survivre dans une situation sanitaire inhumaine.

 Notre société actuelle s’interroge sur le rôle de ses frontières, confrontée à des crises qui lui semblaient loin et qui se révèlent être bien plus proches.

Au-delà des conséquences de notre politique internationale nous devons relever la tête et affirmer d’autant plus notre engagement humanitaire… humain envers la personne fuyant l’horreur et cherchant refuge là où elle pourra trouver un toit, un plat chaud, un avenir pour ses enfants, une main tendue… notre engagement collectif ne nous rendra pas plus faibles, il ne nous rendra pas plus pauvres, il ne nous privera pas d’opportunités, de développement, de nouvelles ressources, il n’aggravera pas la « crise financière », mais il nous rapprochera de notre humanité, nous fera tenir debout, nous apportera un bien être, nous ouvrira sur le monde qui nous entoure et qui avance vers la même direction… survivre à tout ça pour laisser du mieux à la prochaine génération.

 A quoi va servir le financement ?


Cette action a pour but d’apporter un soutien matériel et notre bonne humeur aux réfugiés présents dans la jungle de Calais/ camp de Grande-Synthe.
La zone d’action (Calais ou Grande-Synthe) sera déterminée lors de la mission exploratoire qui sera effectuée les 23 et 24 janvier.


Sarah Valente ©

1- La distribution
Nous avons déjà commencé à récolter des vêtements, jouets, lait en poudre etc..
Nous distribuerons des biens de première nécessité (alimentation, hygiène, vêtements) aux femmes, enfants et hommes présents dans ces zones.
Une distribution de jouets (figurines, ballons, savon à bulles etc..) sera également organisée.
Le financement va servir à la fois à compléter les biens de distribution et à couvrir les frais logistiques d’acheminement de ces denrées vers Calais et Grande Synthe.

2-  Le concert
Le groupe Tales, probablement en formation acoustique effectuera un concert dans le camp afin d’apporter un peu de réconfort et de musique à tous.

N’oubliez pas que chaque participation même la plus petite est indispensable, nous comptons sur votre engagement et votre mobilisation. Nous organisons également un concert à Paris afin de lever des fonds en amont et en complément de ce ulule. Vous pouvez nous apporter beaucoup d’aide pour l’organisation du concert à Paris mais également en récoltant autour de vous des dons financiers via cette page.
Nous comptons sur vous et votre engagement !

 A propos du porteur de projet

Bianca Sarah LEMIEUX, 25 ans, juriste de formation, est responsable ressources humaines et opérationnelle au sein d’une ONG française de solidarité internationale opérant dans le domaine de la santé aussi bien sur des programmes de développement que d’urgence. Elle a notamment été responsable de la mise en place de programme dans les Balkans afin de répondre aux besoins de santé primaire des réfugiés affluant en Europe au cours des derniers mois.
Olivia BIERNACKI, 30 ans, diplômée d’un master d’ethnologie et de gestion de projet en humanitaire, évolue depuis 6 ans dans la solidarité internationale. Elle a occupé plusieurs fonctions notamment  de coordinatrice programme sur divers terrain et crise humanitaires telles que en Jordanie auprès  des réfugiés syriens, au Pakistan et plusieurs pays africain. Elle est responsable programme au siège parisien d’une ONG de solidarité internationale française qui œuvre dans le domaine de la santé tant avec des programmes de développement et d’urgence.
Cette action est la première qu’elles mettent en œuvre ensemble. Elles ont toutes les deux travaillé sur des programmes venant en aide aux réfugiés. Elles sont particulièrement sensibilisées sur la situation que rencontrent les réfugiés en France. C’est sur ce constat qu’elles ont décidé de s’investir davantage dans la réponse humanitaire apportée aux réfugiés dans leur propre pays. Cette action sera donc la première d’une longue série à venir. Pour cela elles fondent une association, D’ici et d’ailleurs, en parallèle. Cette association aura comme mandat principal de porter un engagement collectif de soutien et d’aide aux réfugiés, migrants mais aussi les personnes en situation de grande précarité en France. 

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More about the concert:
https://www.facebook.com/events/991489510924324/

24/01/2016

Looking back at Vertigo Sea, British Isles, recent interviews and shared political discourses



Back in Paris after a week in the British Islas that felt like a month really, because so rich in discoveries and reflexions, I'm only getting enough space and time to think back at everything I learnt and listened to...

Here I start by sharing this article about John Akomfrah's eye-opening masterpiece, Vertigo Sea:



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John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea, Arnolfini, Bristol

Beauty and horror collide in immersive evocation of the sea


Artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s multi-screen film installation Vertigo Sea is an epic meditation on mankind’s relationship with the watery world. Exploring themes of migration, environmental destruction and slavery, it was one of the most talked about works at last year’s Venice Biennale. Now at Bristol’s Arnolfini, the location couldn’t be more fitting. Housed in an old warehouse, the gallery is just a stone’s throw from the city’s floating harbour, near where, three centuries ago, ships arrived laden with human cargo.
Akomfrah took his cue from a radio interview with young Nigerian migrants who survived an illegal crossing of the Mediterranean by clinging onto nets on the side of a fishing ship. They recalled that the ocean was greater and more awesome than they could ever have possibly imagined.
John Akomfrah, installation view of Vertigo Sea, 2015In a darkened first-floor space, Akomfrah re-conjures that awe through an elegantly choreographed 48-minute montage across three screens (pictured right). Each one shows an evolving film collage combining archive and audio material, specially shot footage, old photographs and literary quotations. 
Taken alone these sights and sounds are striking, but what intrigues Akomfrah is the collective emotive force they can have when they “talk” to each other. At one moment, a gigantic tail fin sonorously slaps the ocean surface; next to it a boat crammed too full with people tosses and turns perilously in a turbulent storm, while nearby gentle waves lap onto a sandy shore at dusk. It’s magnificent, beautiful and unsettling, all at the same time. As the mosaic of films evolve, the clashes and contrasts continue, and with them conflicting sensations and emotions. It’s a mesmerising way to evoke a place that can simultaneously fill us with wonder and fear.
There’s plenty of staggering natural beauty on display above and below the waves from film shot on the Isle of Skye, the Faroe Islands and north of Norway, much of it sourced from the BBC Natural History Unit in nearby Bristol. It’s about as audio-visual an experience as you can get, but on a purely aesthetic level it might remind anybody who’s been there of another immersive visual experience inspired by nature – Monet’s Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. There, too, optical visual effects in multiple tableaux become ever more evocative because they’re displayed together. Yet even that master Impressionist would surely have been envious of how film can capture the fracturing of sunlight as it breaks through a cloud of flying seabirds.
John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea, 2015Monet intended his Orangerie as an idyllic refuge from the horrors of World War One. In contrast, Akomfrah forces us to directly engage with the darkest aspects of our interaction with the sea, and their terrible consequences. Some of the most affecting imagery relates to the whaling industry. Majestic shots of whales diving freely in the deep blue jar sharply when shown alongside black-and-white archive of harpoons being readied, or a great, lifeless carcass being eviscerated (pictured above left).
The film opens with footage connected to the story of Vietnamese migrants who attempted to flee persecution after the end of the Vietnam War by packing into tiny boats, hoping to reach Hong Kong. Thousands drowned, and the echo with the current exodus of refugees from Syria is unmistakable.
Using mixed archival material from the past to raise awareness of current political crises is something John Akomfrah has done since he started making films in the Eighties. Yet there’s never a sense that we’re being given a one-track didactic manifesto. He is inviting us to reflect on the present without prescribing a solution for the future. Perhaps that’s why in recent work he has favoured the gallery over the cinema. Some of the most thought-provoking sequences are specially shot, showing figures in costumes from different time periods looking out to sea(pictured below right). They could be waiting for what’s next or reflecting on what has already happened. Either way, a feeling of ambiguity remains. 
John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea, 2015There’s a similarly open-ended approach to representing the past in the second film on show, Tropikos. This time it’s all on a single screen and specially filmed. It’s billed as an experimental period drama, set during the mid-16th century at the time of the early British expeditions to West Africa. Once again there’s local resonance: part of it was filmed in the Tamar Valley where ships would have sailed from Plymouth, tasked with bringing back riches from Africa. This was only the start and before too long,slaves were the priority cargo.
We’re presented with a series of imagined interactions between the Africans and the British as they encounter each other for the first time. The sense is of new relationships and hierarchies being negotiated and defined. In one sequence, an African man carrying tropical fruit and veg is framed amongst the produce like part of a carefully composed still-life painting so that he looks as much a commodity as the goods he’s transporting. Despite its historical setting, in this film too a connection with the present always remains. In one of the final scenes an African man dressed in period costume wanders down to the water’s edge, gazing towards the horizon at what look like modern-day warships. 
In both films it feels like we’re being called to engage more closely with the state we’re in now by looking at events from our past, and their lack of linear narrative or single conclusion doesn’t reduce their power. There’s no stronger way to get people to act than by showing what we stand to lose if we don’t.


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23/01/2016

Thank you!







Thank you for the birthday wishes to my dear friend Virginie.

Check her work on her website: http://www.virginieterrasse.com/


22/01/2016

Helping refugees



Sharing more about the organisation I've been working with since November:



Greek Islands: WAHA upscales its response for refugees

With the help of the Greek Health Ministry and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), WAHA International has set up from September 2015 a response of basic primary healthcare in the Greek Islands receiving an influx of asylum seekers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
We have opened semi-fixed clinics on four Greek islands facing the Turkish coast from where most people depart for Europe: in Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Kos. The clinics are hosted in tents and pre-fab buildings. We have set up a network of mobile clinics, in collaboration with local and national authorities, the Greek Medical Association, and again the UNHCR.
Our missions on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Kos are now well organised and settled. And WAHA International is now getting ready to help refugees in a more efficient way in this coming cold season.
In order to improve our response, we have set up an emergency unit in Skalla, on the island of Lesbos. It is the first emergency unit opened on these Greek islands. We have been able to open the unit thanks to the help of the Association of Greek Doctors and of the Ministry of Health, in November. This even enables us to treat Greek patients, on top of refugee patients, when necessary. It has become the main health centre to treat hypothermia and emergencies, on the shores before their transfer to the hospital, then to bring stabilisation to the most critical patients.
Secondly, late November, we have been able to put into place a few rescue boats: one in Chios on November the 30th and one in Lesbos early December. In Lesbos, a 22 meter-long boat will also be brought soon in December to organise rescue missions and to act as a mobile clinic.
In Lesbos, in coordination with the Greek coast guards, we are now able to help bring safely the refugees from the see to the shores. If necessary, the injured or ill ones are then taken to the emergency unit, by the coast guards and rescue teams. For the most serious cases of treatment, the ambulances can then take the patients from the emergency unit to the island of Lesbos' main hospital, in the capital Mytilene.
In addition, we have also set up mobile clinics at the border with Macedonia and in Athens, to help the asylum seekers pursuing their journey West.
What we now need is to put into place more ambulances, which we hope to be able to do from mid-December.

Description of our missions in Greece as a response to the refugee crisis

WAHA arrived in Lesbos at the beginning of September and assessed the services provided to the refugees by NGOs and aid agencies. We noticed that aid was concentrated in the Southern part of the island and than no buses were in place to transport them from the Northern coast where they were arriving to the camps and registration offices in the South of the island. Refugees had therefore to walk, sometimes for more than two days, from their point of arrival towards the Kara Tepe and Moria camps.
WAHA decided accordingly to first provide aid assistance and medical care to the refugees from their arrival on the Northern Coast, where no aid organisation was present, and to do it through mobiles clinics.
We received a great help from the Mayor of Lesbos, the Greek Ministry of Health, the UNHCR and different groups of volunteers.
By the end of September, the coordination has already improved greatly and two transit camps are implemented in the North of the island: Oxy camp and Skalla camps.
On the island of Samos, WAHA then opened a fixed health clinic in the port of Vathi, main transit point on the island to bring medical assistance and provide basic items for refugees arriving by night (blankets, hot beverage, water, food, socks, etc.).  We also opened a playground space for children in front of the clinic in order to give the youngest people a place where to spend time when their health is not endangered anymore.
On the island of Chios, we opened a mobile clinic late October, to face the sudden increase of arrivals. More than 70, 000 people arrived in Chios from January 2015 to the end of October - 20, 000 in October only. WAHA now has two medical team in Chios, one working in the clinic and the other with a rescue boat, recently brought on the shores.

General context
Since the beginning of 2015, more than 738,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to try to reach a safe heaven in Europe. The vast majority of them are facing incredible challenges because they are running away from war, violence, or persecutions in their own country.
In response, WAHA is providing medical services to the refugees and notably to women and children, along key points in the main routes towards Western Europe and firstly in Greece. We are present from Izmir in Turkey, from where most of the refugees depart, in the Greek Islands and in the Balkan countries of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
Since the beginning of 2015, Greece has seen an ever-increasing number of arrivals from mainly Syria (64% of them according to the UNHCR), Iraq, and Afghanistan but also from Asia and Africa. Arrivals have come to more than 580, 000 people in October 2015 only.


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More about WAHA's action in pictures:


put into place rescue boats in to help : one in & one in , here:
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Dr Khaled is working for in , , to help on arrival getting the needed healthcare:
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's team in : Dr Tayseer from and medical staff
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Afflux de à : La clinique fixe de dans le camp d'Oxy prête à recevoir des patients
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Le bateau de sauvetage de à nous permet d'accueillir les embarcations de en toute sécurité:
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