My first weekend has been spent exploring. Jonathan his son and I drove to a nearby former holding camp where thousands were sent to Auschwitz pre-ww2; this place has been the source of much inspiration for Jonathan in recent years. We drove through various small villages, mountain passes, then flat Mediterranean planes and reached the beach where Jonathan informed me we would grab a drink and build sandcastles. Not so! The café where once excellent tuna steaks were grilled has all but vanished. Signs of summer diminished and autumn rapidly gaining momentum. Sandcastles completed.
The landscape is peppered with colour. Hues of orange and yellow are scattered within the surrounding expanses of green foliage. Winding empty roads lead to small villages and towns with no more than a dozen cars parked at any given time. A bridge named l’escargot (The Snail). It literally curls up within itself. (If you can’t think straight in a place like this there’s no hope).
The landscape changes daily. A recent frost has accelerated the seasons’ exchange and the leaves from trees are yellowing and falling. I’ve spent the past three nights projecting on one such tree adjacent to my chalet. I’ve been photographing it nightly, each time projecting light and painting the tree differently. It’s strange for me to spend so much time with one subject. In the past I’ve searched and found the right area of woodland, or a hanging branch, or flower, and photographed it (so simple sounding). After the act of lighting and documenting, the subject is forgotten. It blends back into the blanket of neighbouring trees as if nothing had taken place. The only record being a figurative representation of something that could well have taken place anywhere.
I have until Wednesday to complete photographing this tree. We’ll drive the two-and-a-half hours to Toulouse and spend a day waiting (somewhat) nervously for the piles of slides to be developed. Then over the course of two hours, the two hours that local businesses require for lunch, I’ll select the best suited slide for scanning: Then more waiting. The resulting photograph will then be used for the installation.
Saturday has been determined as the performance evening. The trees are shedding quicker than expected so the date has been brought forward almost a week. A friend of Jonathan and Helen’s has miraculously composed a piece of music in response to the images on my website. I’ve never met the man, never spoken with or emailed him, but on the afternoon that Helen wrote asking whether I could use a piece of pre-recorded sound to accompany the performance, he laid down a full thirty minutes of music. Incredible that there are people like him, so willing and genuinely excited to collaborate with a total stranger. There should be more like him!
