Luc Ferrari

Tuchan​-​Chantal

DRM404

August 2, 2007

Digital, Streaming

Luc has always been deeply interested in society, in people one can see in the metro, in the street, in popular places. We can be aware of this interest in the majority of his works, but in addition he made several pure sound reports, in particular in Algeria. 

One beautiful sunny day of 1976 we spent the after-noon in the garden of friends. We were lying in the grass with our map of France and wondered where to spend some weeks in summer. As Pierre was sprinkling his young trees Luc asked him to send one water drop on our map. It fell on Tuchan we never had heard about before, so we decided immediately to go there with the wish to explore this small village in the Corbières, a vine country in the department of Aude in the southwest of France. 

There, we brought our sound recorder and camera and let them work. This not very spectacular, not picturesque village was politically very left-minded. We spoke with all persons who agreed easily; the wise men, the persons in charge with the political sections, the postmaster, the vine keeper, the mayor, the butcher, the free- thinker, (we couldn’t meet the priest; he was never there) the policeman, the house of the young people, the firefighters, hunters, … and sometimes we brought together persons who had been annoyed, to explain themselves. Some discussions were very ardent, particularly about hunting and politics; which was exciting for us. 
We became good friends with some of them, had funny picnics with a family eating snails they had caught and had roasted on a grill over a fire. Chantal belonged to this family.