My object project is about being foreign in a country for a long period of time. Having been in England for over ten years certain things start to come up, people suggest that your more English than you're original ethnicity; but what struck me the most is that my friends back home in France take certain privileges for granted. I came to realise in the past few years that I was far more patriotic than most of them, maybe being a little too proud of being French. A big part of that is rugby, I thought it made a good base for the picture as it is where I started to be very proud of my country. I then thought about what made France home for me and decided to go with some pictures of people I left behind there, of course I added a cook book for a traditional approach as well. I did put in an English book, this was the book I learned how to speak English from, for me it really represents my transition into England, and the moment I accepted I would living here for a long time. Of course I added the most important thing that separates me from English people, my identity card. This is one of the last things I have that actually proves I'm still French.
I didn't look at any artist in particular, I focused instead in traditional still life, I did look at artist such as Willem Kalf from the 17th century, or Daguerre's artist studio from the 19th century. I was automatically more attracted to the still lives similar to Kalf's dark images but with a range of colours in. I tried to reproduce a similar piece of work with a very dark background and some contrasting colours with books and pictures.
Lucie,
ReplyDeleteAgain very curious to see what your image looks. Please download it when you can. I was interested by your comments about identity. I suspect I'm attracted to the idea of the "other", the outsider. Perhaps that's why I married a Japanese person and after 30 years of living in this country she still has a Japanese passport. A few years ago she decided that she wanted to become a British citizen, to hold a British passport. Outwardly, I said fine, it is your decision I said, but inwardly I was sad, I wanted her to stay Japanese and her passport proved that. As it turned out she gave up, not because of me (I hope) nor because of British bureaucracy (though it was a pain in the neck and expensive!) but because it seemed pointless. Miyoko would have her own identity irrespective of what official documentation she had, the passport did not prove she was Japanese or British. But of course she is vulnerable to attacks on her identity outside our marriage, if we divorced what would be her official status? I dread to think and therefore perhaps we should look again at her official nationality, though we are not planning to divorce. Oddly as she has got older she has become more Japanese in some respects - she loves watching Sumo wrestling on TV, something she previously despised and gets quite defensive when I mention the corruption scandals that surround it. Our daughter, Elia, celebrates her Japanese inheritance but she is firmly British, or so I thought, but if so, why did she give Japanese first names to her two sons?