{"id":953,"date":"2024-09-18T06:07:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T05:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/?p=953"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:14:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T08:14:20","slug":"meeting-elise-and-fabien-on-site-visit-april-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/?p=953","title":{"rendered":"First Meeting with \u00c9lise and Fabien on Site Visit April"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure how to begin this post. One thought immediately is a strong contrast I have noticed between myself and Ernaux’s writing. In Ernaux there is an absolute lack of sentimentality. Actually, no, I’ll take that back. There are moments and I’m trying to locate one in my mind, perhaps the mention of the yellow forsythia she takes for her Mother when she visits her in the care home. (‘I Remain In Darkness’, ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’). The sentimentality there is maybe overridden by the image of the forsythia as it asserts itself in your mind, the colour, that yellow, and it becomes a gesture of love. There is a cut off point between sentiment and sentimentality. I think I could think of more sentimental moments if I tried and I promise to. The contrast I spoke of is between that scarcity of sentimentality in Ernaux and the bucketloads I know to exist in myself when I feel affection for others.<\/p>\n

Intellectual companionship, the meeting of like-minded individuals in common purpose and friendship.<\/p>\n

Allow me\u00a0 to introduce them:<\/p>\n

Dr \u00c9lise Hugueny-L\u00e9ger, Senior Lecturer in French in the School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews. She is brilliant. Her research profile is here: https:\/\/research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk\/en\/persons\/elise-simone-marie-hugueny-leger<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce, Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh. He is brilliant. His research profile is here: https:\/\/www.research.ed.ac.uk\/en\/persons\/fabien-arribert-narce\/<\/a><\/p>\n

On my first site visit to The Byre I was looking round the theatre on the day of meeting them for the first time at midday . I looked at my watch, they were due to show up there to meet me five minutes later. A second later a young man, presumably a student, started playing the piano on Level One. My knowledge of classical music is extremely limited but I recognised the tune at once and its name came to mind: ‘F\u00fcr \u00c9lise’ (‘For \u00c9lise’). How strange, you couldn’t make it up.<\/p>\n

We met. These two who had the idea in the first place to try to raise funding to commission me to make new work as a contribution to this year’s Ernaux conference, an idea which prompted this so significant and to me so seminal project. Generosity. In them. In Ernaux’s writing. An openness to possibility in others, a willingness to risk it.<\/p>\n

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We walked round the building, we went for lunch, we visited the Wardlaw Museum where \u00c9lise took us up onto a small roof terrace to look out to sea. Limitless horizons.<\/p>\n

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Once a month since January we have met up online for a generous hour to discuss the development of the work, exchange thoughts and ideas from our readings of Ernaux and related secondary literature, settle practical matters and enjoy each other’s company. Their insights and creativity as collaborators have contributed so much to what the exhibition has become.<\/p>\n

You two, thank you. Merci beaucoup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure how to begin this post. One thought immediately is a strong contrast I have noticed between myself and Ernaux’s writing. In Ernaux there is an absolute lack of sentimentality. Actually, no, I’ll take that back. There are moments and I’m trying to locate one in my mind, perhaps the mention of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":959,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susandiab.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}