Aurélia Frey & Emmanuel Faivre

Following a residency in Iceland (summer 2022) for Le Sortilège des Marins, a photographic ensemble and soundscapes (produced in Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and Iceland in the footsteps of Scandinavian poets and writers), we'd like to continue our work in Icelandic waters, in Brittany on the Paimpol-Goëlo and Côtes-d'Armor lands, and in La Rochelle on a project we've named Le Murmure des Égarés. During our stay in Iceland, and in particular in the eastern fjords of Fáskrúðsfjörður (the bay of the French), Mjóifjördur and Seyðisfjörður...., we were touched by the lives of the "Icelanders", fishermen who left Brittany to fish for cod in the icy waters of Iceland, some of whose schooners landed in the cod port of La Rochelle. Drawing inspiration from the writings of Ian Manook, Jón Kalman Stefánsson and Pierre Loti, we'll bring these lands into dialogue, through landscapes, interiors, visual and sound archives. We'll be attentive to the themes that touch us: solitude, silence, the fragility of things and beings. We'll be highlighting these figures from the past, these fishermen subjected to exhausting working conditions, braving the cold, rain, snow and furious assaults of the Icelandic Sea, which we know is rarely peaceful. Our aim is to remember these "Icelanders", many of whom never returned home. To make their voices heard, if only in a whisper... the Murmure des Égarés.