2023-05-25 03:48:00
Reissue of the ode to nature by this former city dweller who became a sheep breeder at an altitude of 750 meters.
There is something about this photo that makes us smile. Claudie Hunzinger, in eph leg – hippie period obliges – gnaws an ear of wheat, sitting in a field with the head of “Pagel” (Francis, of his real name), her husband, on her knees. And yet, “Being a breeder is not a Sunday sport. It is a state that claims you entirely, perpetually. My fear of work must be put down. This is what prompted this former city dweller and plastic arts teacher to keep a logbook to tell about their daily life in this dilapidated farm located 750 meters above sea level, the health of their sheep and that of their children. We can imagine him very well watching his “fear of work” in these tall Vosges grasses. Or, more broadly, to Bamboo, Green Life a testament to an early green movement – hence its reissue in Cambourakis’ new collection, “Radeau”.
“An Animal Blast”
In January 1966, the waltz of the shepherds begins. One, two, three, Pagel stops after eight years the sheep breeding intended for the slaughterhouse for that of the wool. “Four, five, six, Pagel returns to pick cherries which he empties into an unfathomable barrel. It fills up so slowly that they have time to rot.” Seven, eight, nine, Claudie (nicknamed “Mélu”) learns to weave bags, tapestries, clothes and more. “I know why the wool from our new herd appeals to me so much: it is wild. It’s a wool that plunges my unconscious, it’s an animal explosion, and I like that. Of this lyrical style, Charlie Hebdo prefer to speak of a “Marie Antoinette Style” as soon as it was published by Stock in 1973, before adding “you are going to die there on your mountain, all alone and without having done anything”. The prophecy is neither totally true nor totally false: the Hunzingers stayed up there, with their animals and their books, but Claudie, she deplored climate change in each of her works. And, in this sense, Bambois had already warded off the spell.
Claudie Hunzinger, Bamboo, Green Life. “Radeau” Cambourakis, 224 pages, €20.
#silly #life #Claudie #Hunzinger #Liberation