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Äkkigalleria interview with Camille Girard
& Paul Brunet on Sunday May 6th, 2012.
Camille & Paul over looking Jyväskylä in the setting sun. (photo Juho Jäppinen)
Äkki: You are the recent recipients of the
reputable Prix icart 2012, how has this sudden fame affected your lives as
artists?
PB: The
prize was a bit strange; it was more about the recognition and we were extremely
happy to receive this recognition in Paris. So many people came and supported
us. It was great. But nothing has really changed.
CG: It
is a bigger prize to be chosen to come to Finland; more our style. The competition was strange: the
exhibition lasted only 4 hours. The jury came in chose the work and then it was
over. But the party was really great, the students who organised the event did
a fabulous job, and we are extremely grateful for all the support. But after
the party everything is the same.
Äkki: This is your first time in Jyväskylä and you
arrived just in time for a very special Finnish festival: May Day. What are
your first impressions of Jyväskylä (Finland)?
PB: well
first of all it was a party.
CG:
Springtime.
PB:
Everything was just starting up, we met a lot of people, there were lots of
parties (May Day, Graphica Creativa, openings) and we had to adjust to the
climate. It was important to just walk into a store, for example, and look
around. We did a lot of walking and looking.
CG: At
home we don't really get out a lot and here we have been outside almost all the
time.
PB: And
especially because we had just spent the last 2 months inside working and
drinking coffee. And here it is like a breath of fresh air.
CG: But
our first impressions of Jyväskylä when we arrived; it was so strange to arrive
here and find a city with such wide roads after riding the train through the
forest and rural landscapes. But after walking around we can sort of recognize the
landscape we saw from the train.
PB: It
seemed like a really big city. With big block buildings, larges roads and a
cold feeling. It is definitely not Quimper or Paris where the roads are so
narrow and open spaces are rare, here there is so much space.
Äkki: Has your new environment influenced how
and what you are drawing here?
CG: the
last project we worked on everything was the same. All of our drawings were the
same size, same colours: black and white and same subject matter. But those
images were made with a specific goal for a particular exhibition.
Here, we
have started a lot of drawings which we haven’t time to finish...
PB: we
haven’t had time to finish YET, maybe…
CG: ...but maybe they might just stay that
way. And we have been using bits and pieces of found paper from here. When we
work at home we know what is around us. Here we want to get out and see as much
as possible and collect.
But I
want to do something special with the gallery space. The exhibition probably
won’t only be drawings. We don’t know yet…
PB: We
have experimented with a lot of things here. We have just let everything go. No
limits.
There is
a huge part of the work, which is and will remain invisible. The books that we
have seen here for example are present without being shown directly in this
show. Everything that we have encountered has affected us even though it might
remain unseen.
The
subjects of our work are similar to what we work with at home, you can easily
find a connection to what we are doing here. But the drawing is accompanied by
a whole event. It includes music and food. We always want it to be more than just
a medium. There is drawing, the object and the space in between.
Äkki: You have been officially working together
since 2007 when you were still in Art School together. Do you ever work
separately?
CG: Well,
we don’t really do the same thing.
PB: Yes
and no. We work together but it’s true, we don’t do the same thing. We share a
lot of things but our perceptions are very different.
Sometimes
it works and sometimes it doesn't. It is separate and not separate.
Äkki: I noticed that Paul, you have been
reading about Vatanen in “The year of the rabbit” by Arto Paasilinna. Have you
seen Paasilinna’s Finland here in Jyväskylä?
PB: mm.
I don’t know, good question. Vatanen is someone mythical like Jesus. It is as
if he were real or was once real. I have gotten to know Paasilinna more than Vatanen. His writing is amazing, it is dramatic
and hilarious and then it also quite sad. Like the episode where the two people
who are unsuccessful at trying to hang themselves meet by chance, and are so
happy in their common goal to commit suicide.
But we
are in the city too much to be able to tell if this place is as Paasilinna
tells. I don’t think I am able to see it yet. Maybe I see it in the people, I
don’t know it is not so clear.
But of
course I see it; something of it.
If I met
him I would quit drawing and follow him for the rest of my life. His spirit is
completely different. The language is a huge barrier, here we are just
spectators. Maybe I meet him everyday and I just haven’t recognised him. But on
the first of May we met people. They looked at us in the eyes and talked to us
in Finnish with their faces close to ours, and we just had to say “sorry we
don’t understand”, but they just keep on talking. It was quite intense.
Äkki: What importance or influence does
literature have in your work?
CG: No I
don’t think so, it does in my life generally speaking but it does not
necessarily have a conscious effect in what I do with my drawings.
PB: You (Camille)
read a lot more than I do. I read more comic strips. But here we read a lot. So
the literature is quite present.
Reading
is replacing music. Here we don’t have music to listen to with us. But it must
be an influence. A sensation.
Äkki: One particularity about your work is that
you make it together, at the same time, sharing, trading on and off. How much
do you talk or discuss what you are doing or going to do before hand?
CG: We
talk. And sometimes we talk about what we are doing and it works.
PB: But
when we don’t talk it is good. The drawings talk for us. If we could talk well
we might not need to draw. Sometimes we talk about it after.
The most
important thing is to make a decision. And when it doesn’t work it is because
we can’t decide. When we talk we fight.
CG: No,
that is not true.
PB: But,
it is easier when we talk after. We have different perspectives: We say lets go
to the lake and one of us thinks we are going to the lake to draw and the other
thinks we are going to the lake for a walk.
Äkki: The other day you described what you do
as an exchange; an exchange between the two of you and also between you and the
public. For you, drawing seems to be much more than what is happening on the
paper. Could you talk a little bit about your experience of drawing and what it
means to you?
PB: It’s
something communist. It is something which we want to develop in drawing and in
our relationships with others. A way of trying to understand things better, we
share a glance, a meal there are many different kinds of exchange. And
everything, all of our interactions influence us.
CG: we spend
a lot of time looking at other peoples work, not necessarily art, but we are
enriched by that. There are
different kinds of exchange. There is a kind of exchange within what we draw: what
we decide to draw, and how we draw it. And then there are also other people who
participate in our drawings. Exchange is teaching and learning.
Äkki: And what about your earliest memory of
art or maybe of drawing?
PB: “Les
maitres du temps” a fantastic animation. It's a story about a space ship which
crashes on a planet. There is a little boy in the spaceship who has a ball
which is a kind of Walkie Talkie with which he communicates with the mother
ship. He uses it to communicate with an old man, who really is the boy as an old
man, and this man helps him return. I used to watch it all the time, there were
such strange animals in the film. I didn’t really understand it and that is
probably why I watched it so many times. I really should watch it again because I am starting to
forget some of the details. It’s a film by René Lalloux, a very magical film.
CG: when
I was really young, my parents used to have a special arts afternoon for my
brother and myself. It was really just to give us something to do, but those
were very special moments. It was really very important, yet quite simple at
the same time.
Äkki: And now some one word/short answers:
Äkki: Material
CG: objects
PB: ephemeral,
feet on the ground, paper pen.
Äkki: Colour
CG: light
(lumière)
PB: red
Äkki: Process
CG:
duration
PB: procession
Äkki: Explanation
CG: confusion
PB: emptiness
Äkki: Object
CG: subject
PB: a lot
Äkki: Place
CG: landscape
PB: space
Äkki: Time
CG: speed
PB: travel
Äkki: Talent
CG: work
PB: aptitude
Äkki: Future
CG: welcome
PB: now
Äkki: Art
CG: love
PB: joker
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