Video Chênes Verts online

“Les chênes verts / The green oaks” or “jouer aux cartes / playing cards”

duration : 5 min
year : 2006
author : Annie Abrahams.
Voice Patricya Rydzok (French subtitles in English)
Actors : Annie Abrahams and her mother and 4 sisters.

Synopsis :
“Les chênes verts / The green oaks” Subtitle “jouer aux cartes / playing cards”

The common divider of a stay in a psychiatric hospital and a family is a card game.
This video shows us six women playing card in a garden. The speed of the video is slowed down in order to absorb the viewer into the movements of and the relation between these women.
A voice-off relates a story, that seems incomprehensible, makes you feel uneasy and wondering about its relation to the women.

(The text was written about a year after a 7 weeks stay in a psychiatric hospital. It relates how it feels to be inside this place. “there where there are only rules and no norms, there where I was happy, while …… It describes the other people and the relations of the first person with these people. The hospitalisation was the result of TMS difficulties related to excessive and misplaced computer usage)

– First screening:
“Puisque ma voix“ : Intimate sketches film, sound poetry, video and internet December 2005, Monoquini, Montpellier, France. Organisation Panoplie.org

Other screenings :
– 12th International Pärnu Fideo and Vilm Festival : “Pain in the Class” November 18-19, 2006, Pärnu Mud Baths ,Ranna 1, Pärnu, Estonie.
– In the show “Tout va bien“, galerie ESCA, Milhaud, 23-11 au 16-12 2007
– Festival des arts visuels et nouveaux médias, April 21 – April 26 2008, Colloque International : April 24 – April 25 2008, Mohammed VI Theater, Institut français, Insitut Cervantes, Casablanca, Maroc. Commissaire Elisabeth Klimoff.
– In the exhibition Dominique Figarella, Jean Denant et des artistes de http://artistesLR.fr, 18 janvier au 29 mars 2009, le Musée de Sérignan, 34410 Sérignan, France.

Text in French by Xavier Leton in la revue des ressources. en 2007 et en 2011.

Filed under: Video, Elisabeth Klimoff, la revue des ressources, Les chênes verts, Mohammed VI Theater Casablanca, Monoquini, Musée de Sérignan, Patricya Rydzok, Pärnu Fideo and Vilm Festival, Puisque ma voix, The green oaks, Xavier Leton