TWIN ISLANDS | de Sara Bichão e Violaine Lochu

Ainsi semble-t-il que même les îles aiment se tenir compagnie.1

(Hence, it seems that after all islands like to stick together.)

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Like shipwrecked women, Sara Bichão and Violaine Lochu live for a period of time separated on two Atlantic islands, near European shores. The first, who landed on the island of Ouessant 2, discovered vernacular materials, local legends, the right to brie 3 and isolation, posted in the watchroom of the Créac'h lighthouse, which served as her retreat. The second, landed on the island of São Miguel 4, in an intrinsically different context, where the swell and winds are more forgiving and the sea brings back sounds from the depths.  Will they embark on a frantic journey across these island regions in the hope of finding each other, like Werner Herzog on the ice road?  Will they receive signals from the sea currents? What duality, reciprocity or common experiences will result from these journeys? Thus, a long-distance communication is launched, awaiting the reunion. 



T - Tic tac
W - Whale
I - Ignition
N - Necessary

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I - Invert
S - Signal
L - Latitude
A - Antena
N - Noise ?
D - Daboecia Azorica
S - Silence.



It is the environment that initially separates them that ends up connecting them. They are eaten, and absorved by this unpredictable giant organism that is the observed, surveyed and fantasized space of the sea. From the islands they look out into the distance. With their hightened senses, they look for each other, they cannot keep their eyes riveted on the details of everyday life. Instead, they face the expanding time, listen to the whales, talk to the surrounding plants, become familiar with the language of the sea and approach the spatialization above and below the horizon.
As if caught up in this time and space that seems to stretch endlessly before their eyes, Violaine Lochu and Sara Bichão return with singular experiments and a collection of sounds, signs and forms that they communicate to us through fabulous objects. From silence, sculptures with raw forms and instinctive manufacturing are born. This set of objects produced by Sara are then activated by Violaine, who, through a vocal and choreographic composition, transmits to us notes from the sea bed. Wearing the suit created in the Créac'h watch room and bearing the writings of an oracle that has come down to us, this human being does its double reading of this experience.



Ann Stouvenel

A collaboration between Sara Bichão and Violaine Lochu

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1. D.H. Lawrence,  L’homme qui aimait les îles, Éditions de l'Arbre vengeur, 2021, p.17.

2. The island of Ouessant is situated off the coast of Brest (France).

3. The droit de brie was the right during the Ancien Régime to give ownership of wrecks and cargoes of wrecked ships to the islanders. In Ushant, it is still customary to place a stone on the found and coveted object. Thus reserved, it remains waiting to be picked up by its owner.

5. Werner Herzog, Sur le chemin des glaces, Éditions Payot et Rivages, 2009.

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Biografias


Sara Bichão has been developing a path that crosses sculpture, drawing, painting and performance. Her work generally deals in different ways with questions of ownership, reconversion and transformation of objects or other kinds of formal intentions that have a relational history in themselves.
In recent years, Sara has been undertaking several artist residencies, first Residency Unlimited in New York (2012) and more recently Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2019), with the help of the Institute Français. Her works have been exhibited in institutions such as the MAC Lyon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, MAAT Museum, among others.

Violaine Lochu's work explores the voice as a vehicle for encounter and metamorphosis. During long periods of immersion in specific environments, she collects different sound and visual materials from which she creates performances, sound installations, videos and editions. 
Born in 1987, Violaine Lochu holds a degree from ENSAPC (Ecole nationale supérieure d'art de Paris Cergy) and a master's degree in fine arts research (Université Rennes 2). Winner of the 2018 Aware prize and the 2017 performance prize of the Salon de la Jeune Création, she has performed at Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Parade for FIAC 2017, Jeu de Paume, Kunstverein in Munich (Germany), Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva (Switzerland), and Théâtre le 4e art in Tunis, among others. 



TWIN ISLANDS is part of the programming cycle For Eyes but not only
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PROJECT | PARTNERSHIPS | SUPPORT

A proposal by Finis terrae - Centre d'art insulaire (France) and vaga - espaço de arte e conhecimento (Portugal). In partnership with Passerelle - Centre d'art in Brest (France) and Carpintarias de São Lázaro - Centro Cultural in Lisbon (Portugal). Event organized as part of the France-Portugal Season 2022. With the support of the Ouessant City Council, the Conseil départemental du Finistère, the Conseil régional de Bretagne, the DRAC Bretagne - Ministère de la Culture and the Institut français in Paris.