To film gestures, places. To sense that something is afoot, covertly.
To not know. To investigate.
To learn by doing and therefore to attempt to break through the depths of reality.
This could describe the thread that Laura Molton weaves into her films, in which every sense is stimulated to tell the story of an encounter, of a place, like an eco-poetic quest.
Her filmic work is both an art of common words, a eulogy of reality and a plural, troubled and intense space that looks to delve under images and imaginations.
Without seeking confrontation, in soft touches and fragments, her gaze wanders across the surfaces and depths that conceal a buried past. Her perception does not require any manifesto to reveal invisible pollutions. Nothing overbearing — just a ground-level vision that anchors the narrative.
A sense of danger lingers. It can be felt in the body, hands, tips of the fingers, skin, water, soil, mud, rain, moss… In the sound, in the invisible, off-screen.
What matters to Laura is to be with, neither ahead nor behind, but to be one with the film in order to share the moment of discovery and located knowledge.
At the intersection of storytelling, contemplation and memory, Laura Molton’s films reendow reality with a sense of reconciliation with bygone times. They harmonise us with the sensible world and give us power to act within it.

We need stories of justice that enlarge our thinking, stories of relationships to place that enlarge our thinking.٭

Martine Michard, October 2023

٭*Deborah Bird Rose, in The Ecological Humanities in Action, Wildproject 2019.

Translated by Lucy Pons, 2024

Artistes, écrivain·es, philosophes, auteur·ices

Edwin Abbott Abbott, Louidgi Beltrame, Gaëlle Boucand, Elsa Brès, Tacita Dean, Thomas Edison, Abdessamed El Montassir, Kevin Jerome Everson, Ellie Ga, Florence Lazar, Camille Llobet, Robert MacFarlane, Narimane Mari, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Ariane Michel, Stefan Pavlović, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Ben Rivers, Lucie Taïeb, Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, Marie Voignier, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Matériaux et techniques

Vidéo, film, son, installation, cuivre, eau, micro

Outils

Caméra vidéo, micros-enregistreurs, montage vidéo

Gestes

Creuser, gratter, extraire, écouter, fouiller, sonder, relier

Mots-clés

Cinéma, art-vidéo, souterrain, sonorité, canaux, rhizomique, rêve, conte, bruit, origine, excavation, secret, archéologie, surface, infiltration, enfouissement, quête, enquête, déchiffrement, territoire, bordure, paysage, voix, parole, danger, censure, archive, temporalité, écologie, dé-synchroniser, pollution, aqueux, rivières

Livres

Vinciane Despret, La communauté des Ulysses (Autobiographie d’un poulpe, 2021, Actes Sud
J.G Ballard, Le débruiteur, 1960, Tristram Editions
Lucie Taïeb, Les échappées, 2019, éditions de l’Ogre
Lucie Taïeb, Freshkills, 2019, éditions La Contre Allée
Tacita Dean, Écrits choisis, 1992-2011, HEAR
Richard McGuire, Here, 2014, Panthéon édition
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’un ruisseau, 1869, Hachette BnF
Arlette Farge, Le goût de l’archive, 1989, éditions du Seuil
Juliette Volcler, Le son comme arme. Les usages policiers et militaires du son, 2011, éditions La Découverte
Les sonorités de l’utopie, Tacet N. 4, sous la direction de Mathieu Saladin, 2016, Les presses du réel
Vivre dangereusement jusqu’au bout, sous la direction de Benoît Maire, 2011, éditions Cercle d’art
TALWEG 04, 2017, Pétrole éditions
Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes, Axelle Grégoire, Terra forma, Manuel de Cartographies potentielles, 2010, éditions B42

Film

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cemetery of splendour, 2017 (fiction)
Kleber Mendonça Filho, Les bruits de Recife, 2012, (fiction)
Deborah Stratman, Last things, 2023 (documentaire)
Stefan Pavlović, Looking for Horses, 2021 (documentaire)
Narimane Mari, On a eu la journée, bonsoir, 2022 (documentaire)
Ellie Ga, Quarries, 2022 (documentaire)
Gilles Laurent, La Terre abandonnée, 2016 (documentaire)
Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, Les Tourmentes, 2013 (documentaire)

Expositions

Biennale de l’image-mouvement 2016, direction artistique d’Andrea Bellini, MAMCO, Genève (Suisse)
Periphery of the Night, exposition personnelle d’Apichatpong Weerasethakul à l’IAC de Villeurbanne, 2021, commissariat de Nathalie Ergino assistée d’Elli Humbert
Rideaux / blinds, commissariat de Marie de Brugerolle, IAC, Villeurbanne, 2015

Citations

Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save.
Robert Macfarlane, Underland : A Deep Time Journey, 2019