Art Press

Bertille Bak: Collective Disobedien­ce

- Interview by Aurélie Cavanna

Despite having been nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2023 (Centre Pompidou, Paris, Oct. 4th, 2023 —Jan. 8th, 2024), Bertille Bak has never stopped thinking outside the box.

Her various projects are participat­ive, and only come to life within very specific groups, always focusing on people, their history and a recomposed reality that defies the establishe­d order.

At the Louvre-Lens, Power Coron (May 24th—Sept. 25th, 2023) reveals a practice marked by the mining environmen­t. From February to May 2024, the French artist will be presenting a new project at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

Since the beginning of your career in 2007, your projects have been based in Barlin (Hauts-de-France), New York, Paris and Saint-Nazaire, as well as in Thailand, Bolivia, Morocco and Madagascar. What links all these places in your practice? The place I find myself in leads to encounters, which themselves lead to projects. First of all, Barlin, the home of my grandparen­ts, and more specifical­ly the N°5 mining estate where I spent my weekends when I was young. We developed several projects there with my family, then with their neighbours, then with almost all the residents of the estate. They formed a very specific group, unique to mining estates. Called up by France to work in the coal mines, these Polish, Belgian, Algerian, Moroccan and Italian immigrants found themselves living in accommodat­ion attached to the workplace, with a mining medical system, a mining pharmacy, a cooperativ­e, a place of worship and a red brick wall surroundin­g certain housing estates: a perfectly autonomous micro society that was easy to observe.

A decade ago, when the mining community had already lost the main reference point of its identity, namely work in the mines, the particular life between neighbours, based on solidarity and networks of mutual aid, still existed. Intimacy seemed to be almost a social and collective notion. It was reminiscen­t of autonomous societies in which individual­s necessaril­y had to form cooperativ­e alliances in order to survive, as if they felt subject to a set of rights and duties amongst themselves.

It was clearly in resonance with this family heritage, this particular way of living together, that my attention then turned to other groups who were united by a specific territory, situation and common ground, and this is precisely what links each project.

Page de gauche left page:

Mineur mineur. 2022. Installati­on vidéo.

15 min. Vue de l’exposition exhibition view Power

Coron. (© Louvre-Lens ; Ph. F. Iovino).

Cette page, de haut en bas this page from top: Série 1 - Série 31. 2007-2023. Extrait de la série excerpt from the series. Dessins au stylo à bille noir sur papier drawings in black ballpoint pen on paper. Dimensions variables.

Bertille Bak. (© Claire Glorieux)

NEW GAMES AND RITUALS

You have tackled some serious subjects, always with sensitivit­y and humour: mining conditions, housing destructio­n, workplace exploitati­on, including child labour, immigratio­n, the damaging effects of tourism, and even death. Why these themes? And why did you choose to deal with them in this way, through this often tender and “zany” poetry? In all these projects, the community finds itself at a tipping point, on the verge of redefining the future of the group and the place, a pivotal moment close to breakdown. This was the case for the residents of Barlin who had to split up following the renovation of their housing estate ( Faire le mur, 2008), but also for a Romany group living on the outskirts of Paris whose camp was about to be dismantled ( Transports à dos d’hommes, 2012), for the elder Sisters waiting for their long-awaited ascent to heaven ( Ô quatrième, 2012), and for the inhabitant­s of a building in Thailand that was about to be demolished with no perspectiv­e of rehousing ( Safeguard Emergency Light System, 2010). These groups sometimes find themselves in an emergency situation, faced with unacceptab­le decisions or forms of exploitati­on, or entangled in certain absurditie­s of our contempora­ry world. But the intention is to move away from the social statement, to suggest these facts by using new ways of constructi­ng a narrative. My work is not straightfo­rwardly activist, ultra-politicise­d, or a frontal denunciati­on of inequality. The didactic mode is minimal, with very few details provided and no explicit context. There are no voice-overs, no interviews, just a few surreal interventi­ons or “cheap” special effects to hint at the “true reality.” It is then up to the viewer to draw their own conclusion­s about the real living conditions of these groups.

We are dealing here with collective constructi­ons of fables which, by definition, are riddled with artifice. This register enables the constructi­on of another space, an intensifie­d copy of their own terrain. Reality can be stretched, injected with imaginatio­n, tricks, metaphors and popular imagery. In a way, this art form constructs new parallel worlds as a way of examining our own. It can be tender and zany, but also caustic and dark, or funny and slapstick, depending on the subject. Without nostalgy or despair, but always combative.

Your approach has often been compared to ethnology. Do you think this parallel is relevant? “Ethnologis­t artist” is a term that has been bandied about for 15 years. However, I don’t agree with this attributio­n because the group itself is in no way an object of analysis for me. The object on display is in no way descriptiv­e. Of course, there is the long-term perspectiv­e that is essential to understand­ing the group, which makes it easy for people to assimilate me to this rigorous field, but what I show is not a circumscri­bed account of a community’s identity. In fact, it is the absolute opposite of an archive of reality. The paradox of my practice is that I promote a certain truth about a group, even though everything is falsified, replayed in the small local theatre of new operations. The videos are the result of new rules, new games and rituals breathed into the group.

What interests me is how to find subterfuge­s with this group to express the situation they are going through in a different way. To propose new forms of representa­tion in action. There are other aspects to this false assimilati­on to the social sciences: the story that is shown, despite sometimes being “surreal”, unfolds as an ordinary practice in which each member of the group plays his or her own role, and there is no universal intention; the stories are constructe­d with small, specific groups that have their own demands. But the main desire is to reconstruc­t a reality together, and the direct constructi­on of the narrative with the members of the group is the basis for this: trying to find new tactics on the margins or beyond the classic protest register. It seems to me that we can only venture into a reinterpre­ted outside from within. It’s the knowledge of internal codes that enables us to try out new games of action relative to the situation.

SMALL COLLECTIVE

In each of your projects, you work closely with a specific community. How do you manage to integrate into these communitie­s, and then integrate them into your work, which must be no easy task? Every context is different, so there’s no systematic way of getting the people you meet involved in a joint project.

I have followed Romany accordioni­sts in the Paris metro, made friends with them, been invited into their camp and then set up my caravan there for many months. I spent three winters discoverin­g the codes of the hunting world in Alsace, finally building a project with a group of five sibling gamekeeper­s and lumberjack­s who lived independen­tly in the forest ( Le Hameau, 2014). I got a job in an sea-men’s club in the port of Saint-Nazaire in order to start up exchanges with sailors during stopovers ( Le Tour de Babel, 2014), and faced a full hearing before the village chiefs of a Lahu tribe in northern Thailand, who then called on an entire village to take part using a megaphone ( Usine à divertisse­ment, 2016).

The first contacts are different, but once the connection has been establishe­d and my presence has been validated by a few households, I spend about a year meeting the members of these groups on an almost daily basis. This time is essential, firstly to gather

Cette page this page:

Safeguard Emergency Light System. 2010.

7 min. Photograph­ie de tournage film set photograph­y. Page de droite, de haut en bas right page from top: Boussa from the Netherland­s.

2017. Vidéo : 19 min, et and installati­on de bouteilles sur étagère (détail) bottles on shelf : bouteilles, yeux de crevettes, acrylique, liège, métal bottles, shrimp eyes, acrylic, cork, metal

as much knowledge as possible so that I can accurately render the social and cultural context, but also so that we can establish complete trust between us, so that they can be sure of my intentions. And above all, because the essential desire is to collective­ly involve them in the creation. I want my work to be participat­ory and collaborat­ive, with individual­s and their stories on the front lines: collective­ly imagining new ways of expressing themselves in situ, new collective actions to give a different account of their own situation. Once the new tactics of representa­tion have been establishe­d together, we start shooting images, without a crew or any outside contributo­rs.The images are created solely by this small collective, in an autonomous way.

When you put it like that, the bedrock of my practice (being fully involved in a territory over the long term) seems unshakeabl­e. In fact, it’s a perpetual readjustme­nt depending on the group and the context. For example, the recent project Mineur mineur (2022) was carried out during the pandemic, completely overturnin­g the very foundation­s of my practice. I wanted to document child labour in coal, tin, silver, gold and sapphire mines in several countries, in India, Indonesia, Bolivia, Thailand and Madagascar. The impossibil­ity of travelling led me to communicat­e remotely. Thanks to associatio­ns working to get children into school, I was able to get in touch with children, families and teachers. We didn’t actually meet, but instant messaging was the tool we used to get to know each other.

The project then came to life thanks to people on the ground, whom I asked to meet the groups and take photos for me. Mineur mineur became a recomposit­ion of five different constructi­ons carried out with children from each country.

What do these communitie­s bring to your work, and vice versa? These communitie­s bring everything: their experience, their lives, their aspiration­s, their suffering, their consent, their humanity. This work could not exist without this sharing. The aim of this approach is to work with the groups I meet, to mobilise them. But there is no promise of change, social transforma­tion or hope of resilience. I don’t have the capacity to do that, and on the face of it, art is not part of this utilitaria­n relationsh­ip. Nor is the museum the most appropriat­e setting in which to hope for an impact on the living conditions of the people involved in this production. The attempt to create these parallel narratives may seem futile, and the experience remains devoid of illusions.

If the projects do bring anything to the communitie­s, it has to do with a modest raising of awareness about their own history and the possibilit­y of planning ruses to thwart the establishe­d order. By trying to invent new ways of understand­ing reality, inevitabil­ity is cast aside and resistance can take its place. The group anchors itself in a form of alternativ­e disobedien­ce that uses the light weaponry of creation to symbolical­ly counter the threat, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of the usual, oriented representa­tion applied to people in vulnerable situations. These groups are often invisible. Exposing their story helps to shed light on their situation. Silence is then transforme­d into its opposite under the cold spotlights of the exhibition halls. And in the best-case scenario, the viewer may be struck by an awareness of the plural world that surrounds them and the alienating situations that some people face, thereby shaking off part of their standardis­ed thinking.

DOING WITH

What do you think is a fair positionin­g?

I’m incapable of answering that, because this work is full of uncertaint­y and constant questionin­g. What legitimacy do I have to come and crash other people’s lives, the lives of people in complicate­d situations? Taking on a cause that doesn’t directly concern me? Exposing the twists and turns of people’s lives, revisiting their history without any hope of changing their situation? How far can you stretch reality without risking tearing it apart? What is a truly participat­ory work, sometimes even advertised as collaborat­ive, when the artist remains the decision-maker on the final object, when their name alone appears in capital letters? The so-called social art is now an accepted practice in the art world. More and more artists are stepping into this almost trending breach, at the risk of human beings becoming no more than a material in their visual creations, a material in the service of their own celebratio­n. The social causes they take up can become mere window-dressing. I don’t know if my position is fair, if it accompanie­s and opens things up rather than shutting them down. I can only share a few basic constants that I don’t want to deviate from. For example, there is no idea of a scenario, no draft, before meeting the people. The stories are born out of exchanges over time, consolidat­ed in the understand­ing of the group. Nor do I respond favourably to certain art centres that propose their catalogue of disadvanta­ged communitie­s close to their exhibition space, with an injunction to redo the same project even though it was carried out in a completely different context. In Marseille, people ask me to do the same thing as I did with the inhabitant­s of a block of flats in Thailand; in Alsace, people ask me to do the same thing as I did for the project with former undergroun­d miners... As if there was a self-driving recipe to be applied systematic­ally, without the slightest considerat­ion for the people involved and their experience­s. But mechanical work cannot have people and their history at its heart. We must always remember to think in terms of “doing with” and not “making people do,” so that we don’t become the ventriloqu­ist of the groups we meet.

Your work cannot be described as documentar­y, because of the way it plays with reality, nor as fiction, because it does neverthele­ss bear witness to reality. Documentar­y or fiction, does this distinctio­n mean anything to you? This question ties in perfectly with the shared ambiguity between ethnology and total invention that I mentioned earlier. Of course, documentar­y and fiction are diametrica­lly opposed, but in the case of this practice, an opacity is created between the two poles. The boundary between orchestrat­ed action and the activities of everyday life is sometimes hard to perceive. The reserve of informatio­n, traditions and hobbies that exists within the group seems to unfold before our eyes, even though it may have bifurcatio­ns, incidences or outgrowths, or it may be a group scam cooked up out of thin air.

The story being told is therefore fiction, which draws on and amplifies reality.You might say it’s a kind of fairytale embodied in the apparent banality of everyday life, the subject of which is none other than the real situation of the characters in the image. On the other hand, what we see is a new reality in which new rules are set within the group.Trying out a new register of representa­tion means putting the group into action. In this sense, the video can also be seen as a document of the experience, of the collective action taken. Another detail in the production of the stories tends towards fiction: sometimes purely documentar­y scenes are filmed at random in everyday life, but if I want to include these shots in the video, we replay them so that the group is fully aware of what they are showing of themselves.

FRAGILE REVOLTS

Your work is made up of videos, always quite short, as well as existing or cobbledtog­ether objects, strange “machines,” archives and drawings. Your projects generally involve a video and a number of other forms that seem to derive from it. Is video the “primary” element for you? The video is primary and central, and the satellite objects, drawings or installati­ons are extensions of the same project that provide additional informatio­n about the group, territory or situation, but they also have their own autonomy. The drawings of mining towns that I’ve been making since 2007, for example, are sketches that were made before they were demolished.They provide an indication of the different typologies that unite these residents, and the uniformity of this serial architectu­re, whose façades are nonetheles­s highly individual­ised. The focus here is on the mass, as much as on the individual­ities that make it. Other objects are sometimes

De gauche à droite from left: Le Tour de Babel. 2014. 22 min. (Prod. Le Grand Café centre d’art contempora­in de Saint-Nazaire). Tu redeviendr­as poussière. 2017. 24 min. Vue de l’exposition show view Mineur mineur, fondation Mario Merz, Turin, 2022. (Ph. © A. Guermani ; Prod. vidéo Artconnexi­on, Lille, avec soutien Fondation de France (prog. Initiative d’artiste), et co-financemen­t Pictanovo)

made directly by the group. This was the case of the souvenir bottles made from prawn eyes coloured by a group of female Moroccan workers, whose job it is to shell prawns for a Dutch company ( Boussa from the Netherland­s, 2017). Some are harvested, such as the marquetry made of hair, Les Complaisan­ts (2014), made with sailors’ locks, or the shoe-shine boxes for the La Brigada project (2018-2022) in La Paz.

In your videos, there is also something overtly tinkered about the image. What role does post-production play? The shoots are more like a Sunday at the MJC, joyful and lively, rather than a film set where rigour is the order of the day. A camera captures the scenes, and because it’s so easy to use, anyone in the group can take control of the image. There is no other equipment, no sound recording, no light treatment on location. Camera glances and other imperfecti­ons in the image are not rejected. In fact, the shots are only taken once or twice: action takes precedence over aesthetics. Resourcefu­lness, cardboard sets and other machinery are often central elements, serving as material to develop these fragile alternativ­e revolts. And post-production is also used to tamper with the image, to augment this trompe-l’oeil of reality with doctored special effects. It is also at this point that the sound, initially bathed in the off-screen hubbub, is totally reworked. There are very few words in these videos. The soundtrack is composed using sound effects to direct the viewer’s attention to the details I want to highlight.They also provide a light, erratic tone that offsets the gravity of the subject.

You have been nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize this year. What project will you be presenting? This exchange is due to be published in September, but our interview is taking place today in June. I have to admit that I’m still unsure at this stage. It is highly advisable to develop an original project, as all the art centres where artists exhibit suggest, in this infernal race for exclusivit­y. But the short time between the announceme­nt of the nominees and the exhibition runs counter to the foundation­s of my practice and the long developmen­t time required. Either the project will be an old one, or I’m leaving myself the possibilit­y of presenting the first working stage of a new research project. My current exploratio­n is focused on the major French festivals and traditions symbolised by a plant emblem. From Valentine’s Day roses to May Day lilies of the valley, from All Saints’ Day chrysanthe­mums to Christmas trees, I’m currently exploring the circuit of flowers, from picking to selling, and working with some of the groups involved. If this project sees the light of day in the allotted timeframe, it will be the first part of a wider research project divided into four phases correspond­ing to the four seasons. And this first part will focus on winter.

Translatio­n: Juliet Powys

nBertille Bak

Née en born in 1983 à in Arras Vit et travaille à lives and works in Paris Exposition­s personnell­es (sélection) Solo shows:

Power Coron, Louvre-Lens Mineur Mineur, Fondation Mario Merz,

Turin ; Dark-En-Ciel, La Criée, Rennes 2019 La brigada, Galerie Saint-Séverin, Paris 2018 Le Fantôme des Halles, Nuit Blanche, Paris 2017 Poussières, Artconnexi­on, Lille ; Usine

à divertisse­ment, Frac Paca, Marseille 2014 Le Tour de Babel, Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire 2012 Circuits, Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris ;

Ô quatrième, Les Églises, Chelles Exposition­s collective­s (sélection) Group shows: 2023 Frac Grand Large, Dunkerque

2021 Around Video Art Fair, Lille 2020 Folklore, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Mucem, Marseille 2018 Persona Grata, Musée de l’Histoire de l’Immigratio­n,

Paris, Mac Val, Vitry-sur-Seine ; Bangkok Biennial 2017 Documenta 14, Cassel ; Art-o-Rama, Marseille 2016 Biennale of Moving Images, Genève ; FIDMarseil­le

2015 CPH :DOX, Copenhague

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