COOPERATIVE

Raphaël Grisey | F 2008 | 78 min.

Material: DV
Format: Beta SP
Original language: French, Soninké, Bambara

Script: Raphaël Grisey
Camera: Raphaël Grisey
Sound: Raphaël Grisey, Elise Florenty
Editing: Raphaël Grisey

Production: Raphaël Grisey
Print/Sales: Raphaël Grisey

Two pictures side by side. Why are they devided, why is the screen shattered, split this way? Probably in part because of the story itselft. A group of former immigrant workers from West Africa decided to go back to Mali in 1976 and set up a cooperative there. First gap: between France (we see Bouba Touré's collected photos, but also slides of Africa formally shown in France) and Mali. Second gap: in Mali, they had to bring water to the cooperative, to take it from there to here, and many pictures show the formation of this stream meant to join the river to the earth, life to life.
Of course, on either side of the screen, each shot is self-sufficient and lacks neither descriptive precision nor internal dialectic, let alone formal exactitude. But the process reduplicates itself naturally, through the parallel positioning of screens. A dialogue begins whose rules remain unset. – Jean-Pierre Rehm

Raphael Grisey, born in 1979 in Les Lilas, France. He studied in both Paris and Berlin where he now lives and works. In his exclusively video and photographic works Grisey examines various places, which are interconnected by collective and historical memories and social issues of the day such as immigration in France.

Films: Bridge over troubled water 2004 | Etre chez soi avant d’être chez soi (at home before being at home) 2005 | Sand quarry 2005 | Prvi deo 2006 | The Red Star 2006 | Cooperative 2008

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