ARTISTS TALKING

# 13 [23 February 2009]

I came across a quote from 'The Journal of Rivesaltes' written on August 9th, 1942 by a Red Cross worker at the camp (Friedel Bohny-Reiter); it describes interns being loaded into cattle wagons headed for Auschwitz and links well with the section of this blog (October 14th) which is going to appear in the a-n magazine next month.

"...Torrid heat at the camp. The barbed wire, tightly strung around K and F blocks, is oppressing. The moans of the tormented still linger in the air. I see them filing out of their barracks, panting under the weight of their belongings. The guards are beside them. Lining up for the role call. Waiting for hours in a field in the sun. Then the trucks arrive to take them to the rail roads. They get off the trucks in two rows, between the guards, and climb on the cattle cars. Some hesitant, others apathetic, others defiantly, heads held high.

This goes on for hours until all are crammed into the cars where the heat is suffocating. I recognise certain faces through the bars. Calling out one last request, or thanking.

At every door, two guards.

I look at the faces. Even despair has disappeared from these aged, ashen, doleful faces.

From the last car we hear "goodbye . . ."

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 12 [2 December 2008]

After a long wait I've received the large format negatives that Peter Watkins kindly took for me at the camp on a blustery night last month - we projected my videos stills on to the walls of the huts.

The photos of the projections on the exterior of the huts have a strange, eerie quality, projected light contrasts with natural disappearing light. It is as if the scene was a stage-set illuminated by stage lighting. I have yet to print the images, but have a few ideas how they can be presented. 

The images which strike me most, though, are those of projections on the interior walls - decaying, peeling paint has been worn by 70 years of dripping water; vertical lines made by the rivulets dominate what seems at a glance to be a flat surface.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 11 [19 November 2008]

Recently I've been working on the rushes I made at the sites of the camps - particularly Argeles.

Being totally absorbed by editing on the computer and the creative process seems so far removed from walking and recording at the sites and even more distanced from the events that occurred at these places - but that's the nature of making art.

Viewing the videos frame by frame is very exciting as the random zooms of the vegetation, soil, sand, rocks etc grab my attention for the first time. At this stage I suppose I view the videos as a series of stills and I am constantly working out which stills would work independently to the videos, it is not until I work on the sound that I see these groups of stills as a coherent whole.

So, that's the stage I'm at now - working on the sound, editing the actual noise I encountered whilst recording: my footsteps, the zip of the camera case jingling, breathing, birds singing, waves crashing . . . ; one particular sound I'm looking forward to playing with is that of a wire fence twanging (technical term) in the wind.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 10 [6 November 2008]

I was house-sitting for a friend last week at Elne, whilst I was there I visited the Maternite Suisse D'Elne (Swiss Maternity Hospital at Elne) which was active from 1939 - 1944. At this converted mansion mothers who were held captive at the camps of Rivesaltes, Barcares, St Cyprien and Argeles could go to the hospital to give birth (4 weeks prior and 4 weeks following, they then returned to the camps). It belonged to a local family and rented by the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, a Russian Jewish organisation dedicated to the welfare of refugee children during the Holocaust).

The house was restored last year and is now a museum documenting the work of a Red Cross worker: Elisabeth Eidenbenz, who set up and managed the hospital - she saved the lives of 500 children.

Whilst I was there, there was a large Spanish family looking around, three generations, some were moved to tears as they looked at the exhibits. I watched as they posed for photographs. I presume that one of the family was born at the hospital during the war. 

The house has a really peaceful atmosphere which reflects its role during the war as a little pocket of hope in the midst of despair at the camps. 

As part of my documentation of the camps of this area of France I plan to return to make some videos (once I have completed editing recent footage made at Rivesaltes and Argeles).

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 9 [22 October 2008]

I've just returned from a bitterly cold and blustery evening spent at the camp. I went with Peter Watkins, a photographer who is staying with us. Equipped with a generator, projector, laptop and a large format camera we were ready for a night of image-making.

We projected my video-stills (previously made at the camp) on to the huts and then photographed them - I took a few digital shots to get an idea, but the large format shots will probably suffer due to the strong wind and long exposures.

The wind whistled through the decaying hut in which we were based, equipment was blown around violently, I could hear dogs, but Peter assured me it was just the wind. It struck me that, not that long ago, innocent people slept in this small space and experienced similar noises and cold on this desolate plain.

Friedal Bohny-Reitel the Swiss Red Cross worker in her Journal wrote on the 5th December 1941:

Glacial wind, crystalline skies, moonlit nights and so very cold. In the barracks they are freezing, shivering in their beds. I am full of important rage at such misery.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 8 [18 October 2008]

I have been painting today. It's funny that initially I attempted to recreate the images of my paintings in video and now I am basing my paintings on the stills of the videos. It is also strange how my videos are abstract but the stills themselves become more figurative - details emerge: grass, rocks, textures of dry earth...

My work has always been based on memories of walks in the landscape and I thought why can't the walk itself could be the end result, recorded through video?

It is easy to be absorbed in the process of working with images in the studio, which is important, but I felt with this project that it is vital for me to be personally involved in the camp at Rivesaltes; I have requested to be a volunteer at the detention centre which holds refugees awaiting visas, situated on the edge of the camp where my videos are made.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 7 [17 October 2008]

I watched the Frieze 3 Minute Wonder last night on Channel 4, interesting to see my video-walk from the camp in that context. I was pleased to have my name on the end credits as a director of the piece; it came up as ‘Jonathan Moss Video’, which I use as my user name on YouTube. Helen (my wife) joked that it was a good thing I didn’t upload the video under my other user name (which I use for my non art-related videos): ‘Jonny Moscovitch’. It sounds comic, but in a round-about way may have been appropriate as Moscovitch is the original surname of my Jewish family who travelled to Britain from Russia as refugees at the end of the 19^th Century.

A few weeks ago, during the discussion following the War and Peace screening at the Arnolfini, one of the audience asked why I am so interested in the camp at Rivesaltes, was it simply that it is a landscape local to me? It is my love of landscape which led me to film at Rivesaltes initially – the fact that the landscape has a dark history which is connected to my family’s heritage made it real to me personally.

I like that my videos work on two levels, they present beautiful images but of a landscape that has a horrific past (a ‘landscape of trauma’, as Paul Gough would describe it).

I still find it difficult to believe that in such an idyllic part of France a camp of this kind could have existed – every time I visit the camp the atmosphere is heavy with the weight of the past: 2,313 Jews were sent to Auschwitz from there during a 2 month period during 1942, the remaining 3,000 died at the camp from disease and malnutrition and this was in ‘Free-France’, they were sent by the French from an area not governed by Germany.

‘Le Camp de Rivesaltes, 1941-1942’. Anne Boitel:

The existence of the camp is still a thorny subject in France, the darkest point of those shadowy years. The term ‘camp de concentration’ was used by the French government. Although camps were never intended for such an appalling purpose many did die as a result of starvation rations and Rivesaltes was the first step towards extermination as internees were deported to Auschwitz.

I plan to visit the camp over the next few days, this time to project my videos on to the walls of the huts at night and to photograph the images made.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 6 [15 October 2008]

Yesterday evening I found out that a short clip of one of my Rivesaltes videos has been included by the Frieze Foundation for their film "Road Movie" and will be shown on Channel 4 tomorrow (Thursday 16th October) during the "Three-Minute Wonder" slot at 7.55pm after the News. It is the fourth film in a series shown since Monday. All four films can be viewed on You tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTbcnolKJB8

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 5 [14 October 2008]

The weather was pretty bad in our village, in fact it was completely hidden in cloud, so I thought it was a good idea to head for the coast. On the way I decided to make an unplanned stop at the camp at Rivesaltes – probably my 20^th visit, so I didn’t expect to find anything new . . . I was a bit shocked to see, close-up, the large section of the huts (in fact a whole row) demolished. Next to the pile of rubble a sign read – Rivesaltes camp: Restoration of the barracks – it struck me as an odd take on restoration.

I have spoken with the director of the memorial and she had told me the huts themselves were going to be the memorial with a monument / visitor centre positioned next to them. I suppose some huts had to go to make room for the centre.

I made some footage of the debris (a large pile of wooden planks from the rooves and concrete from the walls), a video-walk around it. I had my 4 yr old son Louis with me – I told him not to talk (a bit hopeful). For over 3 minutes he repeated the words “Are there any people here?", I’m sure I can use that somehow.

Heading for the coast I followed one of the camp’s tracks, not one I’d followed before; it took me to an industrial estate. The other side of the estate I waited at a railway-crossing for a train to pass (Perpignan to Paris) – I noticed a siding, just 500m from the camp; I knew that Jews were taken to Auschwitz by train, in cattle-wagons, via Drancy in Paris, but presumed they only walked to the town of Rivesaltes to be loaded on to trains. This nondescript missable piece of railway track played a role in one of the worst episodes of the history of mankind – people must pass it everyday (as they do the camp) and be unaware of its reason for being. I plan to return to the siding to film it whilst walking, something repetitive and rhythmic, perhaps even encouraging reflection on the history of this part of France.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 4 [11 October 2008]

Along the coast around Perpignan there are many sites of WW2 holding camps originally created for refugees escaping Franco's Spain.

Argeles today is known as a seaside resort, so I thought it would be a good idea to film what remains of the camp from where interns were sent to Rivesaltes. What I found was a vast expanse of wasteland bordering the sea, an area of scrub-land with only cacti for vegetation.

It’s out of season, so there were hardly any holiday-makers, just a few naked old men scattered along the beach enjoying the last of the summer sun. Even at midday the place was eerie, no huts remained, just areas where buildings obviously had been.

I walked over the scrub, an area fenced off as a nature reserve.

Vast, empty, bleak and silent (apart from a few birds singing, passing through, heading south) as if the past history of this place could not be completely obliterated.

I walked in circles for over an hour through this bland repetitive piece of land, no distinguishing features, just barren, not a lot of notable features to film, quite monotonous.

As I walked back to the car I passed a camp-site, mobile homes enclosed by a large wall, my friend asked me what they reminded me of, I answered the concentration camp at Rivesaltes – what a bizarre place to holiday.

I now have cactus thorns in my feet, in fact embedded in my shoes; not the most comfortable walk I’ve ever made, but I'm sure I have some footage I can use.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/