je file un fil pour ma fille
VU.CH x Espace Mercerie, rue Mercerie, Lausanne (CH)
2024

je file un fil pour ma fille (I spin a thread for my daughter) explores gestures of care and bonding – between humans and across species – with a particular attention to the power dynamics that arise in the relation to others. With footage filmed over the past three years, Bourlanges’s intimate video work highlights two parallel relationships; one between her and her daughter, the other between a shepherdess and her sheep. Engaged with actions of daily routine, the different bodies negotiate their own agency and boundaries, both surrendering and resisting to being taken care of and becoming caregivers.

The video work is accompanied with an in-situ installation, bringing into the former hospital’s storage of rue Mercerie a large quantity of wool sheared in the Swiss Alps region, and hand-woven sculptural elements.
The physical and sonic presence of woven and whispered words – tongue twisters with ‘f’ alliterations – evoque white noise, the first sounds we hear in the womb, while also outlining forms of patriarchal constraints embedded in (French) language. 

Video edited by Mathilde Renault
Sound composition by Aimée Theriot-Ramos
Filmed by Carmen Gray, Mathilde Renault, Marie Ilse Bourlanges
with Hannah Christina, Bambi, Freya, Witski, Coco, Marie & Zoe
Graphic design by Alix Chauvet
Digitalisation vidéo 8 by Video Projects, Carmen Gray, Brian McKenna

Curated by Agathe Naito & Rosalie Vasey
for the program Production/Reproduction of VU.CH, l’art à l’hôpital

Many thanks to Caro de Valk, Aurélien Lepetit, Arianna Moroder, Virginie Rebetez, Alma Teer, Ramon Coelho, Josha Maud Zwanenburg, Coraline Sandoz and the team of Laines d'ici
Made possible with the support of CHUV, Canton de Vaud, Association Laines d’ici, Mondriaan Fund