Cécile
Silent correspondences, amateur photography, vegetal memory
Her name was Cécile Nivet, born Flèche. She lived in the house where I now live, in Saint-André-le-Désert. She was deeply pious, loved plants, sewing, and photography. At least I think so.
This project follows the traces of a forgotten figure, at the crossroads of local memory, amateur photography, and ecological sensitivity. It begins with a few remnants: municipal archives, a herbarium found in the attic, photographs shared by local residents, and oral testimonies.
This is not a biographical investigation, but a poetic attention.
A delayed dialogue between two women, a century apart, linked by a place, a light, a shared need for calm gestures to inhabit the world.
Intentions
- To bring forth intimate memory from the ruins of the everyday
- To question the invisibilized photographic practices of women
- To listen to the sensitive traces in a place inhabited by others before us
- Archival research: city hall, land registry, letters, found photographs, interviews
- Experimental photography inspired by Cécile
- Fragmentary and poetic writing
- Collective performances in the village cemetery
- Sensitive cartography of the place and its plants
- To make memory a living space, not a monument
- To reveal the ties between domestic gestures, attention to life, and creation
- To honor the invisible, the discreet, those who left no official traces
Initial scouting in progress
Archival research underway
Writing in progress
Envisioned outcomes
- Small artisanal poetic edition: "Cécile, fragments"
- Sensitive walk and reading in the village cemetery
- Intergenerational workshops on amateur photography and local storytelling