As part of the Pluie d’Images photographic festival, Nadine Jestin was welcomed in an artistic residency at the Maison de la Fontaine. She has spent several weeks over the past five months in Brest, a city that was hers until she was 20 years old.
When I was 20, I left Brest.
It was 21 years ago.
In 2021, I come to visit my past.
See what’s left of it, maybe resuscitate it.
When I left, I spent my time looking out to sea. It was only by being away from her that I realized how much it is everywhere here. I had not imagined that an expanse, unstable and changing, could be one of my pillars.
After two decades of a daily life sown elsewhere, what remains of me here? What remains of Brest in me? During this journey in the vagueness of my memory, my past invites itself into my present, my present becomes entangled with ideas. I take stock of my past. I come to knock on the doors of those who have marked my memory. I rediscover landscapes so long familiar.
The past builds us. Diving into it is like visiting our foundations. Remembering why, sometimes, it pitches. Praise yourself for still standing. And if it falters, it may also be that it all started in Brest. Where the offshore wind jostles a little, drives away the clouds and pushes you forward.
It is a story in three parts, echoing the three floors of the Maison de la Fontaine: the past, the present, what remains.
Cradled in popular culture, art entered her life in her third decade. Self-taught, except for a photo cap obtained late to find legitimacy, she did not learn beauty from the Fine Arts, she works on instinct, on what touches her. It is in the intimate, her emotions, her daily life that she finds her inspiration. She now sees her trials as the breeding ground for her ideas. This autobiographical approach helps her through life.
Her projects take shape and life during residencies and exhibitions. She received the Jury Prize and the Audience Prize for the 2020 Young Talent Springboard at the Planches Contact festival in Deauville. Born in 1980 in Brest, she has lived in Marseille for 2 years where, after a long stay in Paris, she finally found the sea.
Festival Pluie d’Images
From January 15 to February 26, 2022
www.festivalpluiedimages.com
Nadine Jestin
www.nadinejestin.fr
