The witnesses
Video installation, 29’/ HD no sound / 2010 / filmed with 81 teenagers from the slums of Cidade Tiradentes, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
"I realized this video (The witnesses), after a commission for the opening of a center of art in the favelas of Citade Tiradentes in the suburb of Sao Paolo. It was for the year of France-Brazil. I decided to film teenagers of these slums to project them in the entrance of the building to come, as a symbolic act of a future place opened to all.
I wanted them to appear in front of my camera outside their usual assignment: poverty and violence. I spoke to them for a long time about all this, in the classes and the community centers, which I crossed all over for a long time. I suggested them to come to walk one after the other, very slowly, along an invisible line, by putting in the space behind the lens of the camera a liked or hated face. What I remember with most strength it is the way they had all ironed their clothes. It smelt the starch sometimes. Some had found or stolen of T-shirt new. They then all moved, raising their bodies, glances against glances".