The idea of a house
“When I first visited the Palais de la porte dorée and more specifically the frescoes in the main hall, the idea of a house on which videos would be projected quickly came to my mind. Soon after, I felt like projecting the images inside-out, like reversing things in relation to the videos in which the dancers are filmed at home.
Following this notion of “home”, there is also the idea that migration implies the creation of a place of one’s own. The Zon-mai recreates this physical zone. At the same time, it is temporarily integrated to the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration to which it is linked by its genesis and its object, while keeping a life of its own. Its nomadic dimension links it even more to its object: migrations.
The videos
“The Zon-mai is composed of 21 videos. I worked in a rather simple way, giving no instructions to the dancers. As they worked at home or in private places, I tried to establish a special relationship with each one of them so that they felt at ease. Even though I didn’t know all of them, a relationship of trust was soon established. I was then able to record rather intense scenes. I worked without a cameraman and filmed everything myself so the shots were not too heavy.
The editing
“The editing was done with Marc Boyer. We did a lot of successive spadework and took a lot out to reach the essential.
The final version lasts an hour and twenty minutes, but since the films are edited in a loop, the sensation of length disappears (the viewer can start the video at any moment). Showing the videos in a linear way would have been inappropriate to such an unpredictable topic.
We tried to find an order within the loop, so we looked for the links between the different videos. While doing so, a rationale emerged that drew a thread between each film screened on the Zon-mai’s façade. It gives a sort of mixture of order and disorder that symbolizes immigration quite well”.