The exhibition-performance entitled “Des éclats” [Shards] combines installations, sculptures and video. I wanted to respond to the ocean setting of Brest by taking inspiration from the work of poetry Ode Maritime (1915) by Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese political writer of the early twentieth century. I have taken from this prose poetry a series of verses probing the relationship between humans and the sea and imagining the notions of departure and movement, such as “I want to go with you, wherever you have been.” The messages are coded using a technique that is particularly familiar to sailors: the semaphore alphabet, a means of communication using flags held at arm’s length to cipher the Roman alphabet. So the poetry extracts become ‘semaphore verses’ taking the form of sculptures, a film and performances given at predetermined times throughout the duration of the exhibition. With “Des éclats,” I question the durability of the performance event and its survival in an exhibition, as much as the dimension of a coded language losing its meaning.

Verses extracted from Fernando Pessoa’s Ode Marítima turned into semaphore language:

Sarah Bellaiche: “Washed out by so much immensity poured into her eyes”

Tiphaine Dambrin: “With the painful sweetness that rises in me like nausea”

Naomie Daviaud: “My feverish desires burst into foam”

Juliette Fanget: “The mystery of each departure and each arrival”

Charlotte Gourdin: “And the tissue of my nerves a net that dries on the beach”

Nina Krawczyk: “Ah, no matter how, anywhere”

Anna Larvor: “Living by shaking the moment of eternal waters”

Martin Routhe: “From the ancestral fear of going away and leaving”

Robin Sarty: “All this fine seduction creeps into my blood”

Tabea Von-Vivis: “And deep inside me slowly turns a steering wheel”