issue 32| may our life be vibrations

que notre vie soit vibrations is a wish I have encountered this past summer in one of the art installations spread across the beautiful estate of Château La Coste, North of Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. Owned by property investor, hotelier and art collector Patrick McKillen, the estate is 500 acres of organic winery, architecture and art, where artists from around the world are commissioned to create artworks in conversation with the location where they will settle their vision in.

Artists include Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, Yoko Ono, Richard Serra, Bob Dylan, Tracey Emin, Siobhán Hapaska, Michael Stipe, Prune Nourry, Sophie Calle, Tadao Ando and many more. Whether they’re a building, like the galleries imagined by Oscar Niemeyer, Renzo Piano or Richard Rogers, or sculptures and installations, the works are monumental and an invitation to root oneself in the space. The connection with nature transforms an artistic journey into a spiritual one. The wish, may our life be vibrations, accompanies me throughout my own exploration of this extraordinary place. 

Louise Bourgeois’s crouching spider, created in 2003 and installed at Château La Coste in 2010, is crafted from bronze and stainless steel. Unlike many of Bourgeois’s other spider sculptures, the legs of this one have been specially adapted to stand safely in water, the student tour guide I joined on my first visit of the estate explained. Positioned on the artificial lake that overlooks the breathtaking Provence mountains, this iconic figure in Louise Bourgeois’s oeuvre explores many emotions, among those the relationship of the artist with her mother, a weaver and tapestry restorer (Bourgeois’s earliest spider sculpture was titled maman). Spiders protect, they’re extraordinarily skilled weavers, they’re patient creatures, they can be harmless yet also be perceived as a threat (this crouching spider has a very muscular body that may be representing her strength). This particular sculpture—like every artwork in this expansive open-air gallery—is planted into this landscape. Beyond space, it draws viewers into their own memories and imagination of trust, love, fear and the multifaceted emotions tied to motherhood. Looking at art is active participation. may our life be vibrations, the stranger’s wish left in Yoko Ono’s almond tree nearby resonates in my mind.

Artist, poet, performer, musician and filmmaker Yoko Ono has chosen the almond tree for her installation. My online quest to know more about the symbolisms of the almond tree led me to the word luz, which appears in Genesis 30:37, sometimes translated as hazel. According to Wikipedia, it may be derived from the Aramaic name for almond, luz, and is translated as such in the New International Version and other versions of the Bible. The Arabic name for almond is لوز lauz or lūz. In some parts of the Eastern Mediterranean shores and North Africa, it is pronounced loz, which is very close to its Aramaic origin. In Turkish, the word for almond is badem, from Persian bādām بادام or bāyām بایام, derived from the Middle Persian word wādām, which means the same thing, and is cognate with the Sanskrit word badama or vatama वाताम. As I travel inside etymology, my brain makes aural connections with other languages I know, like the Spanish word for light, luz. I am tempted to look for its etymology too now (my fellow translators reading this will understand me, and may even have opened a new window, entering the exquisite rabbit hole of definitions and language). It is such associations that bring our imaginations to life.

Planted in a circle, the eight almond trees of Yoko Ono invite visitors to leave their wish for a better future. I left my own, and I spent a lot of time among those almond trees, reading all the wishes from hundreds of strangers I crossed paths within that particular space, among the badem trees, on a warm summer day. It is a poignant and humbling experience to see that most people yearn for very similar things, basic human needs yet sometimes so difficult to attain: love, health, connection. Some also mention wealth and want to win the lottery. Most probably to attain the possibility for love, health, connection. A few create poetry. When you hold space for creativity, you realise how most people do nurture imagination in them. It is sad that we built societies where this side of us doesn’t always get to be seen. Just imagine if we could create moments and spaces in our daily lives, in public space or at work, for each one of us to leave traces of our hopes and imagined worlds, to share our most basic wishes: imagine what that would do to our shared landscapes. And I am not talking about what is already out there, from street artists, activists and other brave souls whose work we do encounter in cities through graffiti, stickers and more, I am saying let every passer-by leave a trace of their heart and soul… erased and rewritten, over and over, as long as civilisations exist. I would love to spend time in streets where our collective imagination breathes. may our life be vibrations.

Ai Weiwei is an artist who is concerned with the way migrants and refugees are treated in our societies, and has created powerful works documenting these important stories, so it isn’t a surprise that he chose his contribution to the Château La Coste to be a path made of paving stones taken from the Marseille Port, which has been a major gateway into Europe for centuries. In this way, the path is connected to the socio-political discourses and realities of people seeking refuge from military conflicts, socioeconomic hardship and more. I have also spent a long time on this path, walking slowly, touching the stones, lying down in silence or in the company of the sound of crickets. may our life be vibrations, may we be moved by people’s stories, and may we act in empathy: through our language, how we choose to talk about those who migrate or seek refuge, how we engage with those we encounter. It shouldn’t be so difficult and yet, our society keeps failing on that front. The more I walked on Ai Weiwei’s path, the more certain I was that we all have our own role to play in honouring the stories of those made vulnerable by the violence of our political systems.

Writer and sociologist Kaoutar Harchi was recently speaking in an interview on Blast (in French) about her latest book, and she was in tears at the mention of Gaza. She then connected her grief to her own role in this context many of us are powerlessly witnessing through (social) media: “My work is to write, that is what I do”, she said poised yet moved, and she linked this work, her writing, to the ongoing need and urgency to seek justice. An important reminder for all of us artists and writers who sometimes feel our efforts and pursuits may be useless in the face of injustice. But imagine a doctor working in a conflict zone, she will not abandon her post because she didn’t manage to save the whole population targeted by violence or hunger. She keeps doing her work, with the tools she has. One life at a time, and it matters. I don’t know how to safe a life in a hospital, or how to defend the rights of someone in court. Writing is my work: observing, reflecting, translating, creating. I seek the vibrations that make us human, through artistic pursuits.

Stepping inside artist Prune Nourry’s monumental sculpture of a pregnant woman lying on her back, through her open legs, I take my camera to capture my shadow reflected inside this body planted on the earth of a millionaire’s estate. An immersive installation and eco-responsible architecture, Mater Earth is overwhelming in its immensity and closeness to our most vulnerable selves. Whether we ever parented or not, we were all born out of a body. Such strong connection between the body and the earth is an exercise in humility, and an experience shaking us to our core. The gigantic presence of a naked female body carrying life is a powerful statement in a world where gender-based violence and inequalities are omnipresent. Her existence alone is defying the patriarchy. may our life be vibrations, she also seems to be saying. 

Right behind the resting head of Nourry’s sculpture, in the heart of an olive grove, Siobhán Hapaska’s Intifada defies power. Adapted from previous works displayed at the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam and Art Basel Hong Kong Encounters 2015, it takes the form of three large, open cubes made of anodized aluminium. Shackled horizontally within each cube is an uprooted olive tree, connected to a vibrating motor. It is a very disturbing view, even more so in this particular setting, with all the olive trees surrounding the installation. Death and life cohabit, the inevitability of violence is unsettling and enraging.

Olive trees have been at the heart of human civilisation for thousands of years, they symbolise abundance and peace. They are cherished in many geographies, and their destruction is almost always political. The title of Hapaska’s installation, Intifada is an Arabic word that literally means, as a noun, tremor, shivering, shuddering, and is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning to shake, shake off, but is now generally translated as rebellion, uprising or resistance.

may our life be vibrations.

A FEW THINGS THAT MAKE ME THINK AND FEEL…

November is IDFA time in Amsterdam. The International Documentary Film Festival proposes hundreds of films from all over the world, and this year I have seen 18 of them. Stories of extraordinary people, in daring, experimental and poignant films, from geographies and contexts that are not always part of my lived or imagined reality. It is humbling. Here is a selection of six films I saw that I hope you can catch in your city or on a streaming service soon:

• 7 Walks with Mark Brown by Vincent Barré and Pierre Creton, where we follow paleobotanist Mark Brown as he shows us the flowers and plants he hopes to use to replicate a primary forest, in Normandy (France). The first part of the film is shot with a digital camera and shows us the process and the discussions happening as the crew and Mark Brown hike within the stunning landscapes, and the second part is a poetic translation of everything we learned about in part one, as we see through the lens of the 15mm camera stunning analogue shots of all the plants and flowers Brown told us about. It’s quite magical to experience.

• I learned about photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková in I’m Not Everything I Want to Be by Klára Tasovská. Jarcovjáková has been working since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until recently that the artistic merit of her photographs was recognised internationally. It is quite an achievement from the director to have been able to bring us into the beating heart of the work and life of Jarcovjáková only using photographs from her archives (Tasovská used 3000 out of the 70,000 she had access to). And the film is much more than a slideshow, the images are brought to live by the photographer narrating her own diaries and skilful editing.

• A very disturbing reality I learned of is the one in Shadow Scholars by Eloïse King, about the worldwide network of educated Kenyans who write essays for Western undergraduates and doctoral students. The film follows Oxford scholar Patricia Kingori, who goes to Kenya to meet these so-called “shadow scholars”. It was very painful to watch how the knowledge, expertise and skills of thousands of brilliant writers, academics, experts is being extracted for the profit and success of students in (mostly) Western universities. 

• Yalla, Baba! by Angie Obeid has touched me on many levels as the filmmaker goes on a road trip with her father, repeating a similar journey he made 42 years ago from Lebanon to Brussels, only this time, they depart from Brussels, where Obeid is based. It reminded me of a similar trip I did with my own father in 2019, which I have also filmed and photographed in the hope that one day I will make a documentary telling our story. Watching this film shook something in me, in a beautiful way. It was very moving to see them leaving Brussels, travelling through France, Italy, Sarajevo, Sofia, Istanbul to then arrive in Lebanon. Throughout the ride, father and daughter shared stories, among them about the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon for almost two decades until 2000. As we were watching this film, Israel was (and still is) bombing Gaza and Lebanon, murdering innocent civilians every day as our Western governments watch in silence or worse, support the Israeli government.

• A Want in Her is Myrid Carten’s debut feature and is probably among the films that touched me the most on a personal level, because you could feel the love in the filmmaker’s gaze. The story is heavy: Carten’s mother Nuala, once a successful social worker, suffered a mental breakdown after the sudden death of her own mother. Nuala shuffles between rehab clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and occasionally the street. Carten takes up the camera - which she has been doing since she was a child, as we can see in various archival footage included in the film - when her mother goes missing once again. There is a lot of pain in the family relationships portrayed here, and the violence of addiction and mental health conditions is palpable. Yet, love is never absent. On the contrary, you can feel how this film has been created out of love, and there lies its power and the possibility for healing.

• I want to end this short list with Park by Yo-Hen So, about Asri and Hasan, two Indonesian students in Taiwan, who meet in a park in the evenings to talk about what has happened that day and reflect on the events in a poem. Gradually, the idea arises to start a radio station, aimed at the many Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan who help solve the country’s labor shortages in sectors such as healthcare and construction. It is a poignant film, shot with a lot of care and tenderness.

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Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. She established the attention span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.

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