For several months, I was a taxi driver for cloistered nuns from a contemplative community. I also spent some time with another community, eating and sleeping in the monastery, following their daily lives very closely. As a result of that long encounter, my installation questions the space – chaotic, invisible – that was woven between us and that is woven almost naturally between two strangers who come in relation. (I was fascinated by their world of few images. By these unchanged walls, these same sceneries that they live in for so many years. By all they were and are and that I am not. By our obvious differences and our deep resemblances.)
The “tour” represents the poetic space in which the encounter really happens. The “tour” is intrinsically linked to cloistral architecture. It is a wood barrel which, for centuries, the nuns used for all their exchanges with the outside world. In my installation, the “tour” becomes a huge cylindrical structure that rotates when the visitor gets in. In that strange space, the visitor can listen to fragments: a complex sound-architecture of this long encounter.
Random excerpt of the sounds that could be heard inside the “Tour” (01:31)
Wood (perform, pine, maple plywood), casters, speakers, sound card, max/msp, sensors, amplifier, black silk organza and white silk organza, thread. Voice: Évelyne de la Chenelière. Very warm and special thanks to the communities of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac and Berthierville. Photo: Julie Faubert.