These artists from Vendée continue their visual and sound project in Morocco

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They form a duo in the city as well as on stage. On one side, Mélusine Farille, 38, who after a career as an industrial designer and construction manager, has been fully involved in photography since 2020. Her work, particularly during confinement, has been exhibited since 2021 in many festivals and has been awarded at the Pierrevert Photographic Nights in 2022.

On the other, Ludovic Chavin, 48 years old, an engineer by training, a teacher for a time, before investing in artistic development (he was, among other things, in the early 2010s, administrator and production manager of the Épicerie cultural, in Clisson). For 2 years, this jack-of-all-trades devotes himself solely to music.

Collect testimonies all over France by bicycle

Together, these inhabitants of Cugand (Vendée) imagined the “NoMad Periskop” project. “The idea is to bring together the two artistic practices, photography and music,” summarizes Ludovic Chauvin.

Concretely, the couple goes on a bicycle explore little corners of France and indulge in a visual and sound collection through their encounters.

The advantage of going by bike is that people don’t have the same feelings and talk easily.

In their luggage, they carry a guitar, a small recording studio, and an “Afghan room”. “It’s a bit like a Polaroid, but bigger,” explains the photographer, who captures the people she meets in black and white on film paper.

Ludovic, for his part, records the sounds of nature, the speech of people.

The objective is to collect material, which will then allow us to retrace what we experienced through capsules of immaterial memory, including images, sound, and music that I compose.

The journey is sometimes punctuated creative workshopsor is financed as part of an artistic residency, as in the summer of 2023, in part of Deux-Sèvres.

A link between Clisson and Casablanca

A new chapter of their project has just opened internationally. On October 26, the duo left Marseille by boat and headed for Morocco. For a month, they will travel via Tangier, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, before returning via Fez.

We have a few stopping points planned, but we rely on improvisation.

Among the obligatory passages: a week at the French high school in Casablanca, “which is twinned with the Rosa-Parks college in Clisson”. There, they will invite students to create, as they did with 6 year old middle school students.^e Clissonnais, “chimera cards”.

“We will bring back their production to show them to the Clissonnais, and this should give rise to an exhibition in Clisson in 2025, combining creations from the two countries,” indicates Ludovic.

The stay, which will exceptionally take place without a bike, will be an opportunity to set milestones and make contacts. Because the two artists have already planning to return to Morocco in a yearfor a more ambitious three-month project, allowing them to enrich their collection of intangible memory capsules.

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