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[music starts]
ANNE-LAURE: You don't tell yourself you're going to be an artist.
It's something that lives in us,
that we don't understand right away
and as we grow up, as we come to analyze things,
as we experiment and meet people, as we see things,
we gradually assume it.
I've always been inhabited by things that perhaps
were stronger than me, so I didn't understand them much
so it could lead to feeling a bit out of place sometimes.
MICHEL: I think an artist is someone who lives through expression.
So I think that...
I consider myself an artist from the moment I find a way to express what I want to say
and to share my world.
MICHEL: This is a special place, I used to live in this house right there.
And I spent my weekends learning how to windsurf in this bay.
And to come back here after 18 years around the world by boat, it’s pretty...
Incredible because I never thought I'd come back and in the end, like every good Breton,
there's a legend that says the Breton always comes home and that's exactly what's happening here,
and I'd never have believed it.
I think it's the cycle of life that does that,
you come back to your roots with a new energy and a desire to create
in your territory.
ANNE-LAURE: If we hadn’t found each other here,
if we hadn’t both shared this craving,
and it wasn’t intellectualized at the beginning,
it was really a desire to create something together.
rather than a child,
it became obvious to us that it should be through art.
MICHEL: If you ask me ‘What is Human Soul?’ I would say that
Human Soul is...
it is born with a question.
and the question is ‘Who are you?’
ANNE-LAURE: Human Soul is a search for differences,
it is really exploring what a person is
deep down within themselves.
MICHEL: It’s this encounter with others that really inspires us with Anne-Laure because
it’s very intimate to ask someone who they are,
it is a question that is rarely asked in the end
and when you ask this question
the answer is often surprising.
[music stops]
[machine noise]
MICHEL: The start of my trip around the world in 2004,
I left after graduating from the Beaux Arts in Toulouse, I set off around the world in 2004,
but to continue my artistic work, well I accumulated information by making notebooks,
sketchbooks, little notebooks. Here, for example, is a little notebook that goes back
a year, almost to the day, with the departure from Brest to Senegal in the first year.
It was a source of information that enabled me to work on other things afterwards.
My son was born in Colombia because we had to cross Panama, so normally you have to wait
two or three weeks to get through the canal. And then it was a two-month wait.
So rather than wait the full two months, we went back to the Kuna Indians where we'd been before,
but we stayed with them for several months, as my partner was pregnant at the time.
So we lived with the Kuna Indians for a very long time, well six months before the baby
and four months after the baby. So here it's interesting because we had time,
I would sit on the beaches, making watercolor drawings, I'd recover a little of,
like it’s often done for notebooks, a little bit of materials. There are words lying around,
there’s a bit of drawing, watercolor, things like that.
But I really wanted to get out of the travel notebook, it wasn't at all what I wanted to do.
ANNE-LAURE: For me, the thing I feel the most comfortable with is collage.
Ever since I was very young, I've always wanted to collect things.
As soon as I see images I like, I rip them out of the magazines and pick them up
and I collect them and keep them. Sometimes I even forget them and then I have moments
when I want to assemble these images together and from there create series.
In this series there was always something very... A duality between two worlds, and it was really
a whole period that was very healing for me, because I was going through a difficult
period in my life, with a big break-up and a big questioning of a lot of things came
through this quest, all the weeks of creation and collages, something was happening that
was moving me forward.
MICHEL: I met up with Anne-Laure, who was also at the Beaux-Arts with me, and she was into collage.
She would start from the center to develop a visual,
I'd start from the page and work my way back to the center
and the two of us, with the intersection of our worlds,
moved more into the pure collage she uses, but we've kept some of the depth of the message
within the encounters. In the villages, for example, there were lots of people and lots to talk about.
So in the work we're doing with Human Soul, we're also reassembling,
recontextualizing a lot because it allows us to imprint ourselves on the page
and at the same time have the depth to tell where we are and who we are.
With Michel, all of a sudden, everything was completely embodied. It was people we met,
it was very lively, very very real. And it was no longer a fantasy or an idea,
It wasn't a concept, it was real life. And it was a wonderful combination to create these
two universes and, in one fell swoop, to drop the page and have the world open up to us
[music starts] two universes and, in one fell swoop, to drop the page and have the world open up to us
with a territory that was somewhat unlimited, in which we could inscribe ourselves.
[laughter]
Hi!
Thank you.
[kitchen ustensils]
I am very happy!
MICHEL: Why?
While I am working
because this is the first time that a yacht comes here
so I am very happy!
NELSON: Thank you!
This is jelly
you can make jelly with this
It comes from here!
This is very good, it’s a seaweed
in Filipino we call this Tambalang
My wife, is my fish
And the lobster is your husband?
Yes!
NELSON: This is the fire to cook the rice.
This is how we cook
on the fire.
this is how the Filipinos cook.
You burn the wood
then you put the pail and then your rice.
[laughter]
You see?
[music stops]
ANNE-LAURE: Human Soul began with Nelson, a Filipino fisherman we met on a remote stretch of sand.
He was hyper-resilient because typhoons every
two years destroyed part of his house and yet he would rebuild.
He was always smiling and he had a real flair for ingenuity.
So we really created a friendly relationship with him.
That was our first portrait.
NELSON: That’s my experience.
Three our four typhoons came by.
[music starts] I can’t predict my life
I can’t predict my life.
I dream when I say,
if my house is destroyed.
I just go somewhere else.
God’s helping me,
so that my house is not destroyed.
MICHEL: We came across some old posts on an isolated sandbar.
We asked him what this old ruin was
and Nelson told us it was his old house
So it became an obvious choice. In fact, this is where we'll be doing Nelson’s portrait.
ANNE-LAURE: And that’s how we came up with the idea of making
a collage of his portrait, and then to change its scale
from this small collage to a very large print at the scale of the landscape
that the person we had met lived in.
MICHEL: To tell the story of this resilient man, we're going to bring him back to these ruins,
to the ruins of his old home
[footsteps in water]
MICHEL: When you begin a process of sociological or ethnological interest in others, it's a very virtuous spiral,
because you see everyone's difference, but at the same time
you feed off it, you don't see it as a handicap.
We had removed his face, we had put parts of his habitat on his back.
We tried to tell the story of Nelson as we saw him.
What we can hope is that when people see this, they'll say to themselves:
I'm going to take an interest in my neighbour, in the guy across the street,
or at the supermarket. I'm not saying that they weren't interested before
I'm just saying that they might be interested in a different way.
ANNE-LAURE: Above all, we realized that with this way of doing things, this process,
we were making collages and installations, but it was also about relationships.
And that's what was interesting for us, to create a bond.
ANNE-LAURE: Yes, it's your flowers!
The red ones?
ANNE-LAURE: Yeah!
[music stops]
Those are the seaweeds.
MICHEL: The seaweeds, yes.
The seaweeds over there, look!
MICHEL: What else do you see? Do you see your boat?
Ah, this one?
Very well.
MICHEL: We were very happy to see that he was happy that we were interested in him.
We were happy to see that he understood what we were doing.
[music starts] and that became the beginning of Human Soul,f
and that became the beginning of Human Soul,
because we thought, this is great, we're going to be able to use this model,
maybe on our next stopover. And that's where we came up with this model of collage,
construction, deconstruction and confrontation.
And then we asked ourselves if we could arrive
with something like a present. So this present, it's an artistic present,
will it create the same relationships of shared curiosity that could exist with children?
When you arrive in a village with children, it inevitably creates a bond.
Here, it's the artwork that creates the bond. So we tried it with the Badjos,
who are a very particular ethnic group.
They are sea gypsies. They have absolutely no status,
they have no passports, they have no land, they are not recognized in the villages,
They are a very special ethnic group,
[singing]
[indistinct chatter]
[children playing]
[singing]
[laughter]
ANNE-LAURE: The day we unrolled the canvas at the foot of their boat,
one of the women with whom we felt most at ease,
put her baby in my arms. And all of a sudden, a bond was created.
I had the baby in my arms and she was laughing, discovering fragments of themselves.
And there it was. There was an appropriation of the canvas, a contact, an exchange and something
that is effectively of the order of an encounter.
[wind]
[music stops]
[distant traffic]
MICHEL: It was an awesome dude, unbelievable. He'd take something simple and turn it
into something complicated...
Darling we have something on our plants.
MICHEL: Little animals?
Small dots, What is it?
MICHEL: Probably because...
Look.
They look like...
do you think they are little insect babies?
MICHEL: Well, there's a chance.
Ah shit.
MICHEL: We have to treat it.
We have to go to...
We have to go to Jardiland!
What's going on?
ANNE-LAURE: I’m doing your hair.
The family home, the original house, where Michel grew up,
yes, it was a bit... not abandoned, but nobody lived there for a long time
and when we came back and we started to do this Human Soul project
and to come back to Brittany, to this house, we started to live in all the spaces
and this swimming pool, with its volume and dimensions, was initially used as a
workshop to cut out our large collages
and we began to appropriate this space, which was lying fallow.
As we co-created in this space and thought about the interior,
we said to ourselves, this space is crazy and it's silly to keep it to ourselves. We can use it
to make our own creations, but we also want to invite other artists to come
and experiment with things.
And what we found so beautiful in this story was to share,
to share this place, to share this space.
MICHEL: So wait, maybe I'll stop it from slipping
It still has the sand...
ANNE-LAURE: From Borneo.
MICHEL: Here we gain some space.
ANNE-LAURE: The funny thing is that it’s back in...
MICHEL: In the water. He's wet. He's wet like on the beach.
ANNE-LAURE: Yeah.
It's quite extraordinary to have this place that can host the Badjaos again
and to be able to show the public the exhibition almost as if they were there,
because it's going to be quite immersive.
There will be sound, there will be videos, there will be this canvas
with water and the vibration of water. So I think we'll manage to create something
quite immersive that will make you feel a bit like you're with the Badjaos.
The reason we're embarking on this adventure
is that we've found a whole host of people
who want to follow us in this adventure.
Already here on site, we've done a first exhibition with the ZAD.
Following this exhibition, some of the artists we've befriended a little more
who follow us and encourage us and help us experiment, will be coming to exhibit here.
And interestingly, it's pretty much the same thing. It's like living on a boat: you have
to accept movement and uncertainty. And I think we're very, very used to uncertainty.
Now it's a question of how we're going to reinvent ourselves, how we're going to build
a new universe with this space, this place, this jewel box that is, that is divine.
ANNE-LAURE: Here I remember this desire to try and occupy the page completely,
but there were things that I found interesting, you know.
There was also this structure on the island where they would go to land.
It was way more more complex and it's true that we simplified it afterwards,
for the installation,
the final installation.
And then we move over to the Tagbanuas,
where what amused us was that, as they were divers, we played with fins and masks
[music starts] where what amused us was that, as they were divers, we played with fins and masks
MICHEL: The Tagbanuas are an ethnic group who live in the south of Coron, in the north of Palawan.
They have been displaced from the northern Philippines and have been given
a magnificent island called Coron.
There was an area where, during the dry season
you can't go by boat because it's windy and not conducive to entering the bay.
We had been talking about it for years.
Then one day, we were lucky enough to have the wind turn,
it was beginning to be the rainy season. And on the way into the bay, we saw some mazes,
an underwater maze of perspective lines in every direction, and we thought wow, this is so beautiful.
ANNE-LAURE: It was very graphic, visually...
We later learned that it was an ancestral knowledge, where they tie little bits of seaweed
to grow and then harvest them.
It was while we were tangled with these lines
that we came up with the idea of using them as a picture rail.
For the duration of an installation,
we wanted to experiment something.
MICHEL: The Tagbanuas, like the Bajaos, have a reputation for strong apnea.
They’re often said to have a third lung, since they spend so much time underwater
to harvest the seaweed or to get shellfish.
It was symbolically powerful to put their portraits back underwater.
[music builds]
[music stops]
[buzzing insects]
ANNE-LAURE: Holy cow!
[wind blowing]
[indistinct chatter]
ANNE-LAURE: Wow!
[laughter]
It's your house!
Your name? I’m Anne-Lo.
Michel.
Leydon.
Nice to meet you Leydon.
ANNE-LAURE: Nice to meet you.
[insects buzzing]
[laughter]
House?
House yeah.
This is a portrait.
TAGBANUA WOMAN: A painting.
A painting.
[laughter]
[laughing and chatting continues]
[music starts]
ANNE-LAURE: We played with the scale and the engine because, in fact, when we first met him,
he was struggling with an engine and they spent days repairing it, so we made it so big,
because it really took up a lot of his time, this old man.
He was carrying the engine on his back. We saw the moment they managed to turn it back on
and they were very happy.
It was really quite an adventure.
MICHEL: It was a bit like they were shipwrecked on a beach,
trying to make their way out with this engine.
ANNE-LAURE: That’s why we managed to spend a little time with them.
Because of the engine.
[music builds]
ANNE-LAURE: We want to tell the story of all these different states of being in the world,
without embellishing them, just showing them as they are.
It’s a kind of opening that's not idealistic. It's not, it's just opening up
the field of what another way of being than our own can be.
MICHEL: Leydon, its Leydon!
[laughter]
[water bubbling]
[music stops]
[water bubbling continues]
That’s the sound of water, that’s not the sound of the video.
Obviously!
Obviously, water !
Everything’s connected.
We’re not even telling you her name is ‘Lo’.
It’s not bad this shot.
I can still see myself. Look, I'm blowing his regulator out to empty it.
You see, all these rushes are going to look great in the pool.
What I found extraordinary was that they had the curiosity
to dive in and see what was going on
and that the encounter took place underwater.
[distant traffic]
[tram bell]
ANNE-LAURE: No, because you wanted to contour it
MICHEL: No, I know, but what I meant is that you had to study the model.
Then we would have contoured it.
The interesting thing is...
But this saves time, look. There I’ll give you Mohammed contoured.
I didn't say it was wrong, I agreed with you.
We always agree in the end.
So we always agree in the end. It's perfect.
In the end, the good guys always win.
MICHEL: But what's certain is that I don't think we...
I don't think we ever got to the end of a process
where the other didn't agree with the realization.
Because I think the frustration would be too great.
You'd hear it every day. But I told you no, but no, but no, but no.
And even then, we can't do it, we both have to be satisfied with the result.
ANNE-LAURE: So
So then...
MICHEL: The Cité de Refuge is the emblematic building of the Salvation Army in France,
since the building was built by a renowned architect, Le Corbusier, with a very special...
[music starts] ANNE-LAURE: With incredibly beautiful architecture.
It was in a magnificent setting, and at the same time, it was as if all the poverty
in the world at a given moment was gathered in this marvelous setting
and it was very dissonant, very disturbing.
That's why we wanted to continue telling the story of this Human's Soul project,
but rather than being at the end of the world,
to tell it here in our society,
to precisely show this discrepancy in our society.
[music builds]
FLORA: The first meeting was a beautiful story.
I'm a member of a group for women at the Salvation Army.
We had been allocated a room by the management
and I found these two there setting up.
I called out to them and said: wait a minute, you're not allowed to be here
because this belongs to me,
this room belongs to us.
They were a bit surprised so I said: no, calm down, try to explain.
And when they said: no, it was the management that sent us,
I replied that I would go and see the management myself
because you have no right to be there.
[laughter]
We looked at each other thinking: well, we’re here trying to establish contact
and suddenly we were already in a trap. And there we were...
So we...
ANNE-LAURE: So we got kicked out, that was it.
[laughter] We got kicked out, apologized, got our stuff went downstairs to the lobby,
A huge magnificent lobby with great volumes, very Le Corbusier.
Very impressive.
Truly impressive, imposing and where everything echoed.
[music stops] And finally, it was a gift that Flora made us.
[dominos clattering]
ALEX: The first time I met Michel and Anne-Laure was over a game of dominoes.
They explained a little about what they were all about. That they had traveled a lot
with their boat and all that, and that they made art. And then I thought, why not
try a new activity, a new way of using my ten fingers.
[music starts again]
[indistinct chatter]
ANNE-LAURE: The aim of this project was really to show that the people who we featured in Human Soul
at the beginning in the Philippines, in Borneo
and who everyone found so exotic - saying: wow they are so beautiful,
we wanted to show that if you took them out of their context
and they found themselves in our society
all of the sudden they would be stigmatized and confined to the fringes of our society.
It is in fact so difficult to find our place in this society
and it's often very complicated to see the light.
In this artistic project we are for the most part surrounded
by sensitive, beautiful people.
Whatever people say, whatever they may think.
[music stops]
HEDI: My name is Hedi, I've been in France for 20 years now.
I'm from Tunisia.
I still have problems with my residency papers.
I've submitted a file to the police department.
They replied by saying I have to be deported.
I've submitted an appeal.
I went to court.
I'm waiting for the answer. Haven't gotten it yet. But here I am.
FLORA: I've just had three strokes, you can't see that a pulmonary embolism, you can't see it.
I've spent months in a coma, you can't see it.
I've been hemiplegic on my left side, it doesn't show.
I was in a wheelchair, I had tubes, I had diapers and here I am today.
I wasn't able to lift my foot before. Things are much better now.
There are other people here who also have stories
and this collage made it possible during the cutting process,
for some of the residents get to know each other.
Because, while cutting things out
you realise “Hey so you did this”, “you did sport” “he made this”, there were
They were those moments of dialogue between us
that united us.
I have known many people who have had difficulties.
Sometimes we think we have it harder than others,
until we meet people who have had more than we did.
[music starts]
MICHEL: We had the opportunity to meet all the inhabitants of Cité Refuge,
both those who worked there and those who lived there
and as the journey progressed, we managed to make
one collage, two collages, three collages.
We had recorded all these clips of voices, these phrases
and we thought to ourselves
that people always say beautiful things without realizing it.
So we made a sound collage of all these recordings,
which we played back in a large room at Cité Refuge, with video installations retracing
the journey we had made with the people there.
[music builds]
ANNE-LAURE: What we like is small and big at the same time
that change of scale.
We liked the idea of saying: now we're going to take these little collages
and we're going to make you get out of the Cité de Refuge
because it was during COVID lockdown.
We were fascinated by Le Corbusier's architecture where light is hyper-important
and there are huge glass blocks
that we had the idea of transforming into screens.
[music continues building]
ANNE-LAURE: It was their portrait radiating through the walls. The walls became porous
and they all escaped for a little while through the windows.
ALEX: It allows us to get together and talk to people from the outside too.
Show them that even if we're just passing through the Cité de Refuge,
that we can make art out of what we've been through in life,
that it's not because you don't have money or you're homeless,
that you don't know how to do anything. We know how to show
what we can do with our values.
It's taking shape and it really defines us well.
Here you really see yourself in your own right
and that's quite the impression, it's really real
This is really...
It’s...
It's magnificent !
I'm at a loss for words because it's really, really beautiful.
This really showed
that we weren't just there to do a little workshop and stay inside the building.
Already we were getting them outside of their home.
And then we had another ambition.
It was the springtime when we said OK, you've been on the walls of your home,
now, we're going to put you back on the street, but not in a small way.
We're going to make huge collages
and stick them all over the rue du Chevaleret.
That became the big street art campaign.
[music continues building]
FLORA: In life we need hope.
When you live, you can't get discouraged and I think I'm the result of that.
Because if I'd let myself go
I wouldn't be alive today.
I couldn't have worked or today be stuck on a wall,
a giant wall like that which is behind me.
When I saw it finished the tears really flowed, they were tears of joy!
It's true that this is my story, it encompasses a lot of who I am.
And this collage
was done according to my story so I've expressed myself.
I'm expressing myself here. When I see that, I see myself.
I see Flore in her totality.
[laughter]
[distrant traffic]
ANNE-LAURE: Bring it to me, I just want to see if I can get a cutter.
No, that's much too big.
The little one.
It’s not too big.
Yes it is. You've seen what we have to cut, I think it'll be much better.
It's O.K. I'll take those scissors.
ANNE-LAURE: Olivier we met him almost two years ago.
The thing we were sensitive to, in fact, was that in the same way, we started Human Soul
and we did Nelson, we were taken with his resilience
and how well he resisted so well
to the challenges of life.
He also approached things with a great deal of philosophy,
a sense of perspective that was a strength.
Olivier was a successful entrepreneur and suddenly,
when you find out you have an illness, the first thing you do is shut up.
Otherwise your company could go under because no one will follow you.
And he did just the opposite.
He took part in this podcast where we were blown away because,
he lay himself bare.
ANNE-LAURE: So we had just taken this photo...
MICHEL: It’s Olivier who took the photo.
ANNE-LAURE: It was Olivier who took the photo of the entire “promotion” of that year
of the Planches Contact Photography Festival.
So it's all the artists from the foundation. It's a great team.
And then we said to him:
Olivier, we want to take a photo of you too.
So he played along and the constraint
was to make him stand up and then, he settled into that position.
I like it a lot. I really like this photo because he really played along, he put all his energy into it.
He stood up, he steadied himself and then, little by little, Michel let him go.
And then, spontaneously,
he took his pose.
And what we find extraordinary is that his posture is one of open arms, truly open hands
and actually looking up to the heavens.
As if he'd predicted it. I mean, I don't know, it lasted two minutes. I said to him:
[music starts] As if he'd predicted it. I mean, I don't know, it lasted two minutes. I said to him:
Olivier, here, I think you're the epitome of what we want to represent.
It's the ultimate resilience.
to be able to reinvent yourself, and on top developing new processes like this,
is incredible.
And there, in his pose, there's a real form of hope and at the same time...
I don't know, when you say it's Christ-like, it's true that you want to ask yourself:
What is he looking at?
[music builds]
MICHEL: In the end, the Human Soul project is always about this
collage of life, this construction and deconstruction.
We like to say that we all have shocks in our lives,
more or less violent ones that accumulate
Sometimes you can get through it, and then sometimes it all falls apart.
We can imagine that for Olivier, in his relationship with his illness, his whole world collapsed.
and what was really striking was the extent to which he was able to...
To build something else out of his past.
DENISE ZANET: Michel and Anne-Laure's Human Soul project
is very close to our hearts,
because Olivier is an ambassador for so many good intentions,
with Photo for Food, his foundation which works against precariousness in France,
but he's also raising funds for the Brain Institute, because he himself was diagnosed
with an incurable disease - ALS, also known as Charcot's disease or Stephen Hawkins’ disease,
and he was told that he had three years to live.
[music stops]
MICHEL: It's Le Havre on the other side.
It could look great in the shot.
ANNE-LAURE: In fact, it's going to be very urban,
there will be a contrast between the beach and...
MICHEL: I wonder if we'll be able to see it. But it would be nice to be able to see it.
[music starts again]
Wait, I'll put it on your back.
MICHEL: I got it.
ANNE-LAURE: You’re OK?
MICHEL: It's OK.
ANNE-LAURE: Careful, it’s gonna slide.
MICHEL: No, no, we’re OK.
ANNE-LAURE: Are you sure?
MICHEL: Yeah.
[door slams]
[music builds]
DENISE ZANET: As with Olivier Goy project,
the first thing that grabs me in Human Soul is the heart.
It’s the energy that comes out of Human Soul.
The way they integrate the landscape
with their collages, in such a dreamlike form,
talking about issues that are important to us today,
like ecology and our footprint in the world,
in such a poetic way, I think they're on the right track.
[music continues building]
OLIVIER GOY COMPUTER PROCESSED VOICE: I’d like to remember that I'm joining a gallery of fighters.
it’s an honor to be in this beautiful gallery of people proudly wearing their scars.
Illness galvanizes me.
It opened my eyes to the value of life and of the present moment.
Not being afraid of death.
means enjoying life to the full. Taking advantage.
Without regretting yesterday, without fearing tomorrow.
Fully being alive.
[music stops]
[distant traffic]
[indistinct chatter]
CITE DE REFUGE WORKER: How are you? It's a pleasure to see you
MICHEL: We’re back!
CITE DE REFUGE WORKER: Yes!
How are you? Sorry, we're being filmed.
We're back with a vengeance, we want to create an installation on the roof.
Oh yes, they told us about it earlier, Malik came by.
We're going to cut, cut, cut!
and bravo for everything you did here...
[footsteps]
[indistinct chatter]
MICHEL: How are you? All good?
MALIK: Hi there! Hi there!
ANNE-LAURE: How are you?
Hi, there. How are you? That's Michel...
ANNE-LAURE: Hi there! Hello! MALIK: This is Denis and Mr Diallo...
MICHEL: I'm Michel.
MALIK: And Mr Dominguez.
The funny thing is that this project on the roof
was the very first project we proposed to start this adventure
and finally, after three years
of projects and adventures, we're ending on a high note with this idea that we had at the start
where we really wanted to put portraits on the roof and be able to see you from the sky.
In fact, the idea is that each time we asked people to tell us about themselves, we created
their portrait in the form of a collage. Maybe Malik showed you some of these.
Afterwards, from these small collages,
we make large collages and recontextualize them in the environment,
in which people live. It's our way of marking this territory, this piece of land.
So we don't have a blank page, our blank page is a piece of territory seen from the sky.
In this case, the site of the Cité de Refuge and from the sky we will be taking a photo
of our XXL installation that will show your place in this city.
Will you come with me, gentlemen and we'll go get the collages.
[music starts]
[indistinct chatter]
Oh! Zaïnabou!
EDDY: It's been a long time.
You got your papers?
Yes, that was settled - thank you.
Wait, that's amazing news !
I have the Carte Vitale, that's the driver’s license.
This is my ID.
This is ID of my home country and the Pass Navigo.
Frankly, it's life-changing. I have all the cards now I'm just waiting for work.
Thanks to God first of all, the good Lord who sees all
and to the Cité de Refuge of course
and being here again makes me happy we're back to make the posters and stuff,
We're here to help Anne-Laure and Michel.
The more time passes, the happier we are to continue the adventure.
They put a lot of joy in here, so...
So it's really important. It was really important to take a little bit of people's souls,
to highlight them and also to show that they exist
All of this experience has been really great In fact, a lot people participated.
I think it's something that was very successful.
Everyone today is asking about them.
They really left a mark, an important imprint on the people here
ANNE-LAURE: We should have brought knee-pads.
[laughter]
It warms the heart to be here.
It's heartwarming because you always meet new people and here, we have an incredible team.
We didn't know each other this morning and here we are and they've really got
a good grasp of the project. We're super efficient and it's great, it's a really good time,
[music stops] it's really pleasant
It's cool
I’m so happy everyone is here
It's about conviviality and getting to know each other.
I love meeting new people.
[footsteps]
MICHEL: Malik, we’re gonna do this one.
We’re over here.
ANNE-LAURE: It’s all good, no? I think you're on top of things, Mr Diallo.
Yeah, you got it?
MR. DIALLO: Yes, I'm good.
[laughter]
It's the conclusion of an adventure with the residents of Cité de Refuge
and this magnificent building by Le Corbusier,
inhabited by these beautiful souls.
And I think our friend Le Corbusier would be very, very happy to see this.
[music starts again]
[indistinct chatter]
That’s me?
MR. DIALLO: It's been a pleasure for me.
It allowed me to move around, I'm very happy.
I've met a wonderful team.
I'm sorry we have to leave each other since you're going to go.
I would want to continue to always work with you.
It's been a great, great pleasure. I'm very, very happy.
[music builds]
MICHEL: I'm blown away by the alignment of the planets.
The plants are in their place, the collages are in their place. People are in their place.
We've settled into the movement and we’ve found our place.
MICHEL: With a little tear
for the people we're leaving because we’ve developed
a strong relationship for this experience.
The portraits of the people who were with us during this covid, during a year
and it's quite touching to see them there again, printed on the building.
[music stops]
ANNE-LAURE: So tonight's event is a double one. It's both the opening of our gallery ‘La Piscine’
and the inauguration of our exhibition.
A double challenge.
It's a bit exciting to think, well, are people going to come?
Will they be curious enough to come and discover this space?
I have the impression that people are talking about it,
so I'm afraid there'll be a lot of people, and at the same time, I don't know.
Maybe there won't be. I have no idea, actually.
MICHEL: It came gradually. It's always the spacewe live in.
So here we have
three video projectors we'd used for the Salvation Army.
So it's a triptych of each story, each portrait
and now it's going to be presented tonight in the pool with DJ B-Side
who's going to do a sound improvisation.
So we realize it's quite a feat
to open an art venue right in the center of this neighborhood.
And this performance, in fact, is yet another Human Soul performance,
because we're bringing back all the portraits we've built up along the way.
We bring them back to my childhood home
and we use them to integrate into the social fabric here.
So we're back to building relationships through art,
with the portraits we've created around the world.
The question is, will it work? Will it resonate with the people?
I think it will work.
In any case, it's already worked because it's allowed us to meet some pretty exceptional people.
It's partly thanks to the people I've met recently that I'm taking the trouble to create this.
So, it's a kind of a...
An endless search...
that never stops because every new encounter inspires us to do something else.
[footsteps]
[man singing on video]
[live music building]
ANNE-LAURE: We've always worked on our project
starting with the individual, then the ethnic group
and here, it's like creating a Human Soul at the scale of a neighborhood
and to see the reaction, to see if it can take hold
if it can federate, if it can create...
Not a community, because we're not community-minded
[music starts] but it's just about creating something and bonding us
around this project.
Since it’s a meeting place,
all we want is for everyone to tell their story and bring something to the table.
So it’s a challenge!
[music builds]
DIMITRI BECK: Human Soul is best described as an encounter.
and in Human Soul, there's the human and the soul.
And finally, in encounters, we find - we must find - the human soul, that is to say, what
makes people come alive, what makes us want to live, to love, to undertake,
to go out and meet others.
Human Soul, we’re in it, we're in this soul...
They've found these individual beauties in places you'd never imagine existed.
We think we'd have to go to other planets to see this.
So it's an interstellar voyage and...
We're floating
When we meet Nelson, with all his beauty and all his...
We can obviously see that he lives in another country,
completely different from ours,
but at the same time, it's a kind of mirror of ourselves too.
In the same way, when you see the Salvation Army,
it offers a kind of beauty of the other
and curiosity about the other.
And when you come out of this encounter with Human Soul,
it makes you want to see even more, to go out and meet others too,
whoever they may be, in the street.
And this is a form of... love
or at least a greater interest in others.
ANNE-LAURE: You know, we were afraid.
We were afraid because we said so: tonight, we get naked, doubly naked.
In other words, when you're an artist and you have an exhibition,
you're always worried about how your work will be perceived.
So we both got naked because we showed our work,
our collages, our photos.
So already as artists, we're wondering how our work will be perceived,
but more than that, we were opening up our home, telling people about our lives.
In the end,
this suggestion of an elsewhere,
with people who, through resilience
[music stops] with people who, through resilience
develop this richness
of savoir vivre
Well...
When we share it, it reassures everyone and in fact we are really happy
and it’s quite moving.
[laughter]
that’s cool
[music starts]
I'd like to finish by saying that when you meet a beautiful person...
You keep them
Find a way, find a way to live an adventure with them.
[music stops]