MARQUESAS

"In 2017, I returned to the Marquesas forty years after my first stay there, with the aim of embarking on this work. As usual, I had both a very specific, and extremely vague notion of what I was going to do. I had the pleasure of being hosted by my friend Pascal, who I’d already met as a young man, in 2002, in Ua Pou. In the meantime, Pascal had put on a bit of bulk, but also taken on a weighty role in the archipelago’s community and activist life: among other activities, today he heads the indispensable cultural and environmental federation of the Marquesas, Motu Haka.

(…) It’s said that in the Oceanian language, there is neither past nor future: just a succession of present moments. The past is in fact well developed as a concept, but it seems to stand in front of us. So we face the past while the future is located behind us, behind our backs, intangible. Vivifying the memories of a people in the way that Motu Haka in particular manages to, is primordial: in front of the Marquesans of today emerge the bearings of a past, without which the meaning of existence to come would be lost.”

Extract from L'Errance et le Divers, 2018, Éditions Gallimard