Her sleepless nights

 This project stems from a constant preoccupation with "images in consciousness", i.e. what remains of an image in terms of affect and cognitive process, when the reality that gave rise to it no longer exists except in individual consciousness. This term covers a wider field than that of "memory", as it raises the question of representation, both of the image itself and of induced images (association of ideas), affects, verbalized thoughts, etc. The "story", i.e. the pretext, is provided here by my grandmother. The basic visual material was created by my grandfather. So this is also a kind of posthumous family project.
As a child, I used to ask my grandmother why she couldn't sleep at night. She replied that when you're old, you move less, so you need less sleep. On the other hand, you had more memories. So, during her sleepless nights, she liked to relive moments from the past that she cherished. On the other hand, she liked to say that when she got really old (?), she'd be all shriveled up and tiny, so I could put her in a little box that I'd always have with me.
20 years later, approaching a hundred and feeling like she was dying, she insisted on giving me as a final gift a travel alarm clock just as old as she was ("because you travel a lot"). The object takes the form of a small cubic brass box, exactly what I'd imagined as a child I'd have to "put" it in.
So there it is. But inside, by way of grandmother, there's a spring, gears and needles. There's time, or the idea we have of it. Maybe that's all she was: just time. Time to take care of me, time to collect memories and tell them to me in the form of stories.
Mon grand-père a tourné l’essentiel des images avec une caméra qu’il avait conçu avec son équipe, une Crouzet ST8, première caméra légère à exposition automatique.