Pere Lachaise Tour -Part 1

After concerting the initial findings of everyone, we decided together to focus on the coexistence of life with death as well as focusing on the 4 different age groups of people buried in the cemetery. We particularly wanted to highlight the fact that Pere Lachaise is an archive of the past. We therefore picked four persons each belonging to one age generation; an old man, an adult, a young adult, and 3 children.

 

I first came up with the idea of building a coffin, surround it by candles, and place in it 4 symbols each representing one age generation. For example, a cane could represent old people. But the idea was too cliche and therefore we tried to expand it. I also didn’t manage to find an object representing a young adult. As a result, we came up with the idea of hanging on ropes pictures of buried people in Pere Lachaise– this is a way of narrating their stories and of highlighting the aspect of this cemetery as being an archive, a memoir of the past.

 

However, this idea wasn’t completely corresponding to what a Tour is. For me, a tour is also about experiencing something new, being immersed in the atmosphere of the newly discovered place. I thus thought of more combining my first idea to the idea of hanging pictures on ropes. I ended up thinking of an installation, as having the pictures hung on ropes in a dark room. This installation had to be interactive, like a tour. Considering the symbolic meaning of candles in a cemetery, they became included in our installation that could now be considered more as a performance; we, as guides, hand and light a candle to each of our classmates and let them enter two by two the completely dark space where they can see, using the light of their flames, the displayed pictures. Once they end their tour, they place their candles under the pictures. This is a metaphor of the living paying homage to the dead, and therefore an aspect of the coexistence of life with death.

We all agreed on the idea of using the dark space as it has several meanings. First, exploring the dark space is a metaphor of exploring tombs. Also, it’s a metaphor of reading a history book residing eternally  under the ground. Secondly, the fact of being in this dark space as a living, is being closer to the dead, as we’re exposed to the atmosphere of where they’re buried (underground). Moreover, being in the dark enhances the mysterious aspect of the past, of what resides under our footsteps; as living people, we’re unaware of the past, the background, the lives of people buried in the cemetery we wander in. In addition, we all agreed on using candles for its symbolic aspect as mentioned before. In addition, it emphasizes the wanted effect of oldness residing in memories and events of the past.

For the making of it, we divided the task into four; each member of the group had to pick a person belonging to a certain age group and mobilize pictures that represent his/her background. (eg; era, profession, cause of death, etc.) I chose to focus on a french painter Felix Ziem, who died at a very old age: 90 years old. He got awarded with the award of Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur because of his influence in the artistic world. In the pictures, I decided to always add the cracks in a manner of depicting how old he was.