Natacha Nisic — Portfolio — Slash Paris

The catalogue of gestures is a repertoire of everyday gestures, hand gestures in particular. They are gestures of women, men, children or the elderly. For each one, it is a question of observing a way of being, a particular articulation of gestures and language, gestures and work, gestures and daily practice.
Each is filmed rigorously on the site of his or her activity. The elements of the Gestures Catalogue are in Super 8 films. They are then filmed on video or photographed. All of these images constitute a very rich and non-exhaustive data bank (it is not a sociological or scientific work, even if the approach refers to it). The catalogue is in perpetual evolution, new films are constantly being added to the old ones. It is not a finished object, but an open whole.

f, like Fukushima (2013). Two years after the disaster, she travels to Fukushima and looks at the landscapes, villages and people who have suffered the ravages of the tsunami and the radiation from the power station. Thanks to a device consisting of a 25-metre tracking shot and 30-centimetre wide vertical mirrors arranged at different intervals, the artist allows the viewer to see the field and the reverse field, the before and after, at the same time. When the camera passes in front of a mirror, a moving image of the counter-field moves in a horizontal travelling shot in the opposite direction across the width of the mirror. It constitutes, without trickery, the play of one image in another, of one movement in another, of a landscape and its opposite. The device makes it possible to conjugate the time of the displacements and the spaces in a single glance.

Meeting Nakamura Take, Japan’s last blind Itako shaman, Natacha Nisic and historian Ken Daimaru create a dreamlike fresco about cultural heritage and its function in the places affected by the disaster. Taking up the mythical dimension of Japanese plays, they weave legends and documentary narratives. The desire to make peace with the dead motivates each of those who visit an Itako. How to make peace with the legacy of the disaster? On this trip to Osoresan, we discovered a touching, smiling and open woman. We realized that Take Nakamura is a monument of Japanese history. Very precious, rare and fragile. A bit of our humanity.
With the participation of Take Nakamura. Actors: Chiten — Satoko Abe, Fumie Kubota, Yohei Kobayashi, Kyoko Takenaka. Mika Shigemori

« Rather die than die » takes the spectator into an experience of the duration of the 14-18 conflict and its traumatic nature through an incision in a singular story, that of the German art historian Aby Warburg and his plunge into psychosis following the declaration of Armistice in 1918. It is in the heart of a man’s madness, within his theatre of fear and cruelty, that the experience of violence can be expressed.

In e (2009), which means image in Japanese, the artist tells the story of a trip to northern Japan, near Fukushima, in search of an inaccessible territory scarred by the June 2008 earthquake. Natacha Nisic substitutes the images of the earthquake with those of its repercussions on the place and its inhabitants. This narrative is presented in the form of an installation of three projections that alternately function as a sound score.

Le catalogue de gestes constitue un répertoire des gestes du quotidien, des gestes des mains en particulier. Ce sont des gestes de femmes, d’hommes, d’enfants ou de personnes âgées. Pour chacun, il s’agit d’observer une façon d’être, une articulation particulière des gestes et du langage, des gestes et du travail, des gestes et de la pratique du quotidien.
Chacun est filmé de façon rigoureuse sur les lieux de son activité. Les éléments du Catalogue de gestes sont en films Super 8. Ils sont ensuite filmés en vidéo ou photographiés. L’ensemble de ces images constitue une banque de données très riche et non exhaustive (il ne s’agit pas d’un travail sociologique ou scientifique, même si la démarche y fait référence). Le catalogue est en perpétuelle évolution, de nouveaux films viennent sans cesse se greffer aux anciens. Il ne constitue pas un objet fini, mais un ensemble ouvert.