Information and resources on 'Level 2 Gallery: Illuminations' at Tate Online.
Valérie Mréjen, Dieu, 2004
Single screen projection, colour video on DVD
Running time: 11 minutes 30 seconds
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007
Courtesy galerie serge le borgne, Paris.
enlarge14 December 2007
–
24 February 2008
Valérie Mréjen
(born 1969, France)
Valérie Mréjen was born in Paris in 1969
where she still lives and works. She is an artist, film-maker and writer. Her
documentary film Pork
and Milk was produced in 2004. She is the author of the novel Eau
Sauvage (Wild Water), and the texts Mon grand-père (My
Grandfather) and L’Agrume (The Citrus Fruit) which are
structured as a series of short pieces, each with a distinct narrative. Solo
exhibitions of her visual art practice have been held at Tramway, Glasgow in
2000, Centre pour l’image contemporaine, Saint Gervais, Geneva in 2003 and
Galerie Serge Le Borgne, Paris in 2004. An exhibition of Mréjen’s work will
be held at Jeu de Paume, Paris in April 2008.
In Dieu eight Israeli men and women recount their memories of the
specific moments that led them to abandon their Orthodox Jewish faith. The
incidents are ordinary – the switching on of a light, eating hummus in a restaurant,
dancing at a party. Mréjen is fascinated by such apparently trivial instances
that have an irrevocable impact. ‘I find that in what people call the everyday
or banality, there are hundreds of details which make everything and nothing’,
she has noted. ‘It’s precisely these minute details which reveal everything
that can be behind them.’ The frankness of the narratives is reiterated in
the direct documentary style, as the interviewees confront the fixed camera
face on. This confessional format and the measured pauses between each story
heighten the sense of both humour and pathos as the implications of their decisions
to pursue a lay existence – often resulting in estrangement from family and
community – is disclosed.
