Pour faire le portrait d’un serpent

Format:
HD color video, 6 min
HD colorvideo, 27 min

A snake can be regarded as a line in space. Perhaps a silent impending threat. For some people, even today, snakes are considered sacred vessels confining inconceivable mysteries.

These two films render the procedure of taxidermy held in a laboratory at the Natural History Museum of Paris. Foreign bodies encounter each other in this space: human hands searching to materialize and condense the movement of a serpent throughout a series of gestures. Achieving this goal requires an absolute focus on behalf of the taxidermist. Keeping the senses available to the animal for hours on. During this laboratory ritual we can bear witness as life awakens from the apparent inert substance of this creature remaining susceptible to transformation.

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