Influences

This is a selection of things that we have encountered and we consider worth sharing. Ideas that make the world we live in evolve, either by reflecting it, sublimating it or confronting it. We are all part of a larger dialogue and it is time to speak out.

The texts, lectures, films, podcasts etc. that you find here have shaped my thinking over the years. It's not an exhaustive list, they're there because I came across them in the right time and place. Perhaps they are no longer revolutionary at the time you come across them, perhaps you have had the chance to meet other authors before them, who have enlightened you. The paths of thought are often long desert crossings, until one day someone says out loud what you haven't been able to formulate in your head for a long time. Or until that day when people no longer think you're crazy because others around you have started to say things that echo your words.



Greta Thunberg: Humanity has not yet failed
Podcast, 2019
On her journey across the United States to attend COP 25, which was due to take place in Brazil but was moved to Spain at the last minute, Greta Thunberg took a microphone with her to record her encounters. This is her travel diary. Everywhere she goes, environmental and social issues are raised, and the two are always intertwined. One thing is clear: climate change has already begun.
>>> Listen here




Aurélien Barrau: Le plus grand défi de l'histoire de l'humanité
Conference, 2020
(Engl. The biggest challenge in human history)
Aurélien Barrau is a French astrophysicist, philosopher and poet. What interests me about him is the honesty of his discourse. His words sound extremely radical and far removed from anything we hear elsewhere. But once we get over the initial shock, we are forced to recognise the accuracy of his words, and thereby acknowledge that our way of looking at things has been conditioned by a dominant way of thinking, from which it is hard for any of us to escape. Yet this is what we need to rethink the world and invent tomorrow. This conference is just one of many he has held.
>>> Watch here in French
Finding something from Aurelian Barrau in English is practically impossible. Here is one of the few interviews he has given to a foreign TV magazine >>> Watch here
And because he is also a poet, this is a work of pure beauty in collaboration with the musicians of Desertstreet >>> Watch here




Paul B. Preciado: Je suis un monstre qui vous parle
Essay, 2020
(Engl. Can the monster speak?, translated by Frank Wynne, 2021)
For me, discovering Preciado was a bit like rediscovering the world. At first not understanding anything, then slowly moving to the other side. Feeling the crucial importance of his words in rethinking bodies. The social body and the animal body. Getting out of the binarity of the world means putting our construct on its head since antiquity. If gender binarity is no longer a clear a priori on which I can think about the world, what can I hold on to, and where can I start again? Thinking about discrimination or the pathologisation of trans bodies in the way Preciado does means rethinking all bodies, seeing all the harm that humans can do to each other, and taking up arms to fight the patriarchy in all of us.
>>> Read some pages in original here
>>> Read some pages of the translation here




Katell Quillévéré: Réparer les vivants
Feature film, 2016
(Engl. Heal the living)
Death is part of life. It is there, but it is forgotten. Then there are those moments when it invites itself into the picture and takes us by surprise. Heal the living tells the story of a heart transplant, from a young man to an older woman. Hospitals. The genius of Mankind in making these life-prolonging miracles possible. The pain of mourning. The power of the world. And the interconnection between us all. Katell Quillévéré's cinematic language is powerful beyond description. The camera flies through space and across the waves. The images are of great beauty, enhanced by precise and accurate acting.
>>> Trailer with english subtitles




Edouard Louis: Histoire de la violence
Autobiographic novel, 2016
(Engl. History of Violence, translated by Lorin Stein, 2018)
Self-analysis of a homosexual rape. Edouard Louis dissects the traumatic experience of being raped. The words hit as hard as the punches, and I can identify with his story. Not because I went through the same experience, but simply because life is sometimes hard on all of us. Certain episodes hit us hard and take our legs away. Putting it down on paper may open the door to remission. But Edouard Louis is also the same generation as me. The same age. And speaks the same language. With Histoire de la violence, he joins a tradition of novels that take personal experience as a social marker, the work on oneself as the first stage of sociological work.
The text was adapted for the stage by Thomas Ostermeier, with Edouard Louis playing himself.
>>> Read some pages in original here
>>> Read some pages of the translation here




Nicolas Martin: Un été en Antarctique
Podcast series, 2020
(Engl. A summer in the Antarctic)
In 10 episodes, the documentary takes us on a journey of genuine wonder. It has become so hard to marvel at the unknown, to really embark on a journey. Slowly, Nicolas Martin introduces us to all the characters who embarked on the Astrolabe heading for the Dumont d'Urville base. The ice cracks and in a second I feel billions of kilometres from home.
>>> Listen here




Marc Augé: Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité.
Essay, 1992
(Engl. Non-places. Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, translated by John Howe, 1995)
If I had to leave just one trace of my studies in cultural sciences, it would perhaps be this book. By introducing the concept of non-places, as opposed to places, Marc Augé creates a category of thought for understanding our relationship with space. Supermodernity has increased the number of places of passage and transition ( highways, parking areas, malls, etc.), thereby reducing the number of places where we can meet and live. Marc Augé theorises a feeling that must run through many of us on our journeys. Putting words to this impression that spaces are being colonised without our knowledge helped me to understand how I wanted to inhabit the city and reject a system of inhabiting space that crushes the living.
>>> Read some pages in original here
>>> Read the translation here




In Between
Animation Short Film, 2012
We all have a crocodile that follows us everywhere. My crocodile is not the same as yours. For me, this film is a poetic depiction of that intimate part of ourselves we all take with us wherever we go. Sometimes a film doesn't need to do much to be magnificent. The simplicity of the story touches me and makes me think that we all have something in common hidden deep inside us.
>>> Watch here




Céline Sciama: Portait de la jeune fille en feu
Feature film, 2019
(Engl. Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
It's a story of women, made by women, about women. Women who are not afraid and who explore their instincts. Women who love and women who think. Céline Sciama has tremendous faith in her actresses and her team. The result is an abundance of creative energy. Each image is worked like a painting lit by candlelight. It's a courageous film that allows itself to be influenced by all the arts and remains in dialogue with them.
As it's a film about a love story, there's also a generous emphasis on the body. Bodies that live in spite of their blouses. Living by day with wind and water and by night with earth and fire, telling stories. Stories of birthing and plants. Stories of the ancestral knowledge that women had about their bodies.
>>> Trailer with english subtitles




Charlotte Bienaimé: Un podcast soi
Podcast, 2017-now
(Engl. A Podcast for One's Own)
Feminism is all very nice when you put it like that, and everyone is a feminist, but what does it mean to rethink our world? My relationship with myself, my social construct, in other words the categories I have created in my head to understand the world and interact with it. Living in an age like ours, which is in the throes of major social upheavals, we all have a responsibility to relearn. Patriarchy has oppressed and continues to oppress men, women and non-binary people. The problem is within each of us, and so is the solution. A Podcast of One's Own is a toolbox for moving forward. Very fine work by Charlotte Bienaimé and a nice nod to Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own.
>>> Listen here in French




Robin Campillo: 120 Battements par seconde
Feature film, 2017
(Engl. 120 Beats Per Minute)
The story of a militant struggle. That of Act Up Paris against AIDS in the 90s. Raising their voices and saying no. Shouting out injustice to find meaning in life. Accepting the disease. Living and asserting oneself. Finding new ways to campaign. Throwing fake blood at laboratories. Denounce the morality that condemns human beings. Dance and scream.
>>> Trailer with english subtitles