Era Hada is an installation inspired by the Pyrenean archetype of the fairy: era hada in Gascon  dialect. I developed a strong interest for this archetype in 2018, when I discovered that hada means both fairy and crazy. A popular medieval tale portrays a fairy living among humans, celebrated for her enchanting beauty. But, as soon as she uses her supernatural abilities to save a crop, and the community she grew to love, she is rejected and forced to hide in the woods forever. Working with this archetype allows me to reclaim this feminine power, connected to the natural elements of the landscape : mountains, springs, trees, rocks.

The main element of the installation is a ceremonial performance, improvised on location to give thanks to the mountain, mirroring the flight of griffon vultures. I've chosen to project it onto bed sheets my grandmother passed on to me, like legends were passed on orally from a generation of women to another. Then, next to a spring known for its healing properties, I recorded an aquatic soundscape where a fairy would thrive. Again, in the Pyrenees, medicinal activities related to nature were traditionally assigned to women only. I also used pinhole photography to  capture this archetype: long exposure creates an impossible space-time where the fairy is at two places at once, both veiled and naked, like in the ancient tales. 

An illegible shot makes us wonder: what am I looking at? The fairy, some plant, water? Like in  Antonioni's Blow-Up, successive enlargements deform the image to the point of abstraction. Imagination replaces our sense of sight to create its own myth. I tried to explore this idea further with the second video of the installation. Flashlight projects on the wall, the fairy's mirage, looking for her without ever properly finding the proof of her existence. Is the fairy a tangible  presence, or a mere construct? Maybe the legend told for centuries materialized her in some  way. It is all a matter of perception.

My artistic practice results from my experience as a camera operator, my spirituality, and my ongoing research about Pyrenean traditions and folklore. Through my audiovisual work, I  explore my intimate connection with Nature and the representations of the Sacred Feminine in our local culture. 

After a decade working on movie-sets, directing and writing, my practice evolved towards what  it is today when I moved back from Paris to the Pyrenees in 2016. Once used to complex workflows involving numerous crewmembers, I now work on my own in the woods or on a mountaintop, always with minimal gear. 

I perform ritual ceremonies like what they could have been in ancient times, an expression of  my personal spiritual practice as well as the outcome of my research. Videotaping these ceremonies, inherently connected to their location and the energy it holds, allows me to transport them through space and time.

In the editing room, I experiment with cut or reversed movements and their hypnotic repetition. Every image holds a symbolic power and filming them, then showing them on a loop, is my attempt to find their meaning.