Alejandra Riera with neighbourhood users and residents.
The Fontbarlettes quarter is part of the Valence-le-Haut complex, known as a coherent new city project in the 1960’s, though ultimately the scheme remained unfinished. The patrons, noting a stigmatisation of the neighbourhood, wanted to give the locals a voice, understand how they appropriated the space and their perception of a bigger “outside” likely to invite different interpretation.
Alejandra Riera made several visits to Valence during which she spoke at length with neighbourhood residents, proposed meetings, projected films and organised communal “actions” in different places. With these residents she conceived the filming sessions for her “film-document”. The result is a film and a publication, thought and produced simultaneously, but which function in an autonomous and complementary manner.
The film combines different images such as archives, text images and mises en scène with the residents. In her practice, Alejandre Riera calls “film-documents” a singular manner not only of making films, but of “exceeding” them, that is to say, “thinking of film-documents (…) as outside the scope of film itself, which would constitute a document of its time, adding to its own space the more uncertain space of historical, temporal, affective discontinuities.”
The publication presents itself like an investigative report. It is composed of retrieved pages ¬– the first notes on conversations with the residents – accompanied by footnotes written by Alejandra Riera and image plates with captions inviting new thought for reflection.
Throughout the film and the report, in the dialogue between plates and text, sounds and images, witness accounts, comments and citations, multiple passages become visible or probable, beyond the separation established between the supposed centre and its periphery.
press release, April 2012 – pdf
légende image : Vue partielle, 11 novembre 2008. Gare de Lyon, Paris, palmier en pot, «Butia Yatay, origine : Argentine, Brésil»
Investigation of the/our outside (Valence-le-Haut)) (2007-…) on the 24th April 2012, an image of collective thought on the place in which we live. Alejandra Riera with residents of the Fontbarlettes district.
Twelve Exchanges, “Footnotes” and thirty-nine images and captions
21 x 29.6cm, stitched notebooks, hardback, 352 pages.
800 copies
ISBN 978 2 953391275
25Euros
Captures éditions Captures éditions in partnership with art3, Valence.
commanditaires : des habitant(e)s de Fontbarlettes avec l’association Le MAT
L’Enquête sur le / notre dehors a été initiée dans le cadre de l’action Nouveaux commanditaires proposée par la Fondation de France.
médiation–production : Valérie Cudel / à demeure, en partenariat avec Imagine / Issy-les-Moulineaux et art3 / Valence
soutien : Fondation de France, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Centre national des arts plastiques (Image-Mouvement) / DRAC Rhône-Alpes, Région Rhône-Alpes, Département de la Drôme