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#Unite @ Montreal

“Aux sombres héros de l’amer
Qui ont su traverser les océans du vide
A la memoire de nos frères
Dont les sanglots si longs faisaient couler l’acide...
”
— Noir Désir

Text and photography by Patrick La Roque

The dream is always the same...tornadoes appearing in the distance, slowly filling up the sky. I sit by the window, aware of the oncoming darkness and cold breath of the thunderclouds as I watch in silence, a witness to the gathering storm.

Helpless.

Today I stood with children and grandmothers, fathers and sisters and brothers and friends, all united against tyranny. I heard the courage of a people united in the broken song of an old woman, her voice sad but strong, shaken but defiant, ready to push back against the long nights of terror and barbarians.

As I write these words over 120 people have died in Paris, slaughtered by strangers, by neighbours, by their own. But today we faced the tornadoes, shoulder to shoulder.

No more.

Landscapes of Memory (I)

The point of departure is so often a severance. The breaking of ties, a rejection of all that is past.

The stillness of old spaces. Ancient burial grounds, awaiting resurrection; the spirits that burst forth in seething, vital turmoil.

At the borders of origin, can we deny that what we are, owes its place, to what was? 

Can we enter the foggy ground of what we were, without destroying what we are?

Can we ever truly return?

Alizarine Frida

Photography and text by Vincent Baldensperger

"- Tu t'appelles comment ? 
- Marie 
- Marie comment ? 
- Marie A."

Marie a les cheveux rouges 
et c'est leur couleur naturelle…

Marie n'est pas une coiffeuse, Marie a l'âme d'une artiste,
le regard flamboyant lorsque l'on évoque Frida Kahlo. 
Ne cherchez ni le détail ni l'artifice ordinaire, 
traversez le miroir sans retenue 
vous êtes l'invité de son cabinet de curiosité capillaire 
où se marient objets, symboles et bestiaire silencieux. 
Passions, histoires et contes d'autrefois réunis autour de quatre murs...

Derrière le rouge flambeau souffle une voix sucrée, 
vous êtes un enfant, Marie saura vous apprivoiser.

"-What's your name?
- Marie
- Marie who?
- Marie A."

Marie has red hair
& it's her natural colour...

Marie isn't a hairdresser, Marie has the soul of an artist,
her eyes burn with fire when someone mentions Frida Kahlo.
Do not look for the mundane or the ordinary,
walk through the looking glass without hesitation
you've been invited to her cabinet of curios
where objects, symbols and silent bestiaries collide.
Passions, stories and ancient lore within four walls...

Behind the red torch a sweet voice whispers,
you are a child
Marie will tame you.

 

Whiteout

Text and photography by Bert Stephani

Gently at first, powder sugar
then more, much more
A thick white blanket muffling every last sound
Defeated by frozen water, the city goes to sleep early

A shovel digs into the frosted crust,
the sound of metal scraping the pavement
Life flows back into the city
through winding arteries of liberated concrete

White sculptures dotted around the city
Soon forgotten, liquid memories
Nothing lost, nothing gained
Just 24 hours of rare tranquility

Nude Technicolor Echoes | Verses.

Text and photography by Patrick La Roque

He's thinking of Saul Leiter in a New York blizzard, of dripping shadows brushed across a fedora
& women sprawled in their apartments, pale hearts dissolving in the twilight.

He drinks light like liquor & he paints & he paints
& vapours burn his face & stretch his mind.
He sees atrocities in the deep, the white magic of dark corners;
& he sees beauty.

He speaks in nude technicolor echoes  
calling mad horses with a long black tongue;
inside/outside, it's all the same —
All a moving canvas,
stilled within a captured frame.