Video and text were published in January 2020
Maumont is a small village in the Perigord in France. It consists
of 15 houses, around 30 inhabitants and there is no church, shop,
café or other public facility. Only a few original residents are
still living in the village; most of them died over the years,
others left to live elsewhere. Today most inhabitants are
pensioners coming from other (Western European) countries. Twenty
years ago you could still smell the farms everywhere. Herds of
cows and sheep were led through the village every day. Nowadays
you mainly see quads, mountain bikes and parents, leading their
children on donkeys. The village has changed from a place where
everything was related to soil, work, growth and the seasons, to a
place where the inhabitants mainly stroll, relax and dream.Momon
is the old (Occitan) name of the village, no longer in use since
the French name ‘Maumont’ was chosen. For me, the name Momon is
the village as it exists in the mind. It is no longer physically
linked to the location, but it is linked to memories, coloured by
nostalgia.
On the other hand the place is still what it always has been:
earth remains earth and stone remains stone. The Biennale de Momon
starts from there but the physical village will only be used as a
starting point. Not by changing anything but, on the contrary, by
keeping it the way it is, by maintaining continuity. The project
is about the thin line between two sides of reality, mass and
energy: air touches the earth, the sun moves over the land.
Objects are illuminated, heated and perceived but not changed
The project might consist of texts, scores, routes, images and
sounds, everything that can live online without actually touching
the physical ground. In the village there will be no objects that
refer to the project, apart from a sign with the web address. La
Biennale de Momon will be approachable online only. Of course you
can choose to visit the actual village (phone in the hand), but
without expecting to see something different than what it always
was, a small village in the Perigord.
For this occasion I have invited eight colleagues with different
artistic approaches, but with a certain preference of creating
work without a material body, without physical traces:
Sarah Boulton (GB)
Marc Buchy (FR/BE)
Joan Heemskerk (NL)
Frans van Lent (NL)
Susana Mendes Silva (PT)
Josh Schwebel (DE/CA)
Lisa Skuret (US/GB)
Elia Torrecilla (ES)
Martine Viale (CA/FR)
Already for 28 years we own a small house in the village; we
witnessed a lot of changes and we were of course also part of
those changes. We offer the participating artists the opportunity
to use the house for a week in the first half of 2020, to get
acquainted with the environment, the village, the residents.
In May, as a vernissage, we will invite all inhabitants of the
village, to have a meal, while we present them the (online) works
of La Biennale de Momon. They know the area very well, so through
them the artist’s contributions will be confronted with the
physical reality of the village.
In that specific occasion no artists will join, to prevent the
focus to move away too much from the actual village to their
artistic representation.
On September 19 2021, we will organise a small public conference at
the Dordrechts Museum in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. This
conference will also be called La Biennale de Momon. The artists
will join this occasion, to meet each other, and to talk
(publicly) about their work. Also we will invite some other
professionals with a relation to the subject.
Frans van Lent
Video and text were published in January 2020
Maumont is a small village in the Perigord in France. It consists
of 15 houses, around 30 inhabitants and there is no church, shop,
café or other public facility. Only a few original residents are
still living in the village; most of them died over the years,
others left to live elsewhere. Today most inhabitants are
pensioners coming from other (Western European) countries. Twenty
years ago you could still smell the farms everywhere. Herds of
cows and sheep were led through the village every day. Nowadays
you mainly see quads, mountain bikes and parents, leading their
children on donkeys. The village has changed from a place where
everything was related to soil, work, growth and the seasons, to a
place where the inhabitants mainly stroll, relax and dream.Momon
is the old (Occitan) name of the village, no longer in use since
the French name ‘Maumont’ was chosen. For me, the name Momon is
the village as it exists in the mind. It is no longer physically
linked to the location, but it is linked to memories, coloured by
nostalgia.
On the other hand the place is still what it always has been:
earth remains earth and stone remains stone. The Biennale de Momon
starts from there but the physical village will only be used as a
starting point. Not by changing anything but, on the contrary, by
keeping it the way it is, by maintaining continuity. The project
is about the thin line between two sides of reality, mass and
energy: air touches the earth, the sun moves over the land.
Objects are illuminated, heated and perceived but not changed
The project might consist of texts, scores, routes, images and
sounds, everything that can live online without actually touching
the physical ground. In the village there will be no objects that
refer to the project, apart from a sign with the web address. La
Biennale de Momon will be approachable online only. Of course you
can choose to visit the actual village (phone in the hand), but
without expecting to see something different than what it always
was, a small village in the Perigord.
For this occasion I have invited eight colleagues with different
artistic approaches, but with a certain preference of creating
work without a material body, without physical traces:
Sarah Boulton (GB)
Marc Buchy (FR/BE)
Joan Heemskerk (NL)
Frans van Lent (NL)
Susana Mendes Silva (PT)
Josh Schwebel (DE/CA)
Lisa Skuret (US/GB)
Elia Torrecilla (ES)
Martine Viale (CA/FR)
Already for 28 years we own a small house in the village; we
witnessed a lot of changes and we were of course also part of
those changes. We offer the participating artists the opportunity
to use the house for a week in the first half of 2020, to get
acquainted with the environment, the village, the residents.
In May, as a vernissage, we will invite all inhabitants of the
village, to have a meal, while we present them the (online) works
of La Biennale de Momon. They know the area very well, so through
them the artist’s contributions will be confronted with the
physical reality of the village.
In that specific occasion no artists will join, to prevent the
focus to move away too much from the actual village to their
artistic representation.
On September 19 2021, we will organise a small public conference at
the Dordrechts Museum in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. This
conference will also be called La Biennale de Momon. The artists
will join this occasion, to meet each other, and to talk
(publicly) about their work. Also we will invite some other
professionals with a relation to the subject.
Frans van Lent