Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger, Philippe Schwinger

France, détours, episode 2: this line is your path

In 1978, Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville made the TV series: “France / tour / detour / two / children”, in which they aimed to identify the lifestyle of French people in 12 episodes of 26 minutes each. On each episode a little boy and girl are firstly asked about their daily lives. By broadening the scope of the interview, the questions of Godard and Mieville gradually bring the protagonists to think of themselves as subjects in the history of the world, to “live and see themselves on television” with a critical point of view. Thirty years after Godard and Mieville’s series, the two artists initiate a project, entitled France, detours, divided into four episodes, by which they are invited to “interrogate the French” in order to reflect on the question of “living together”. The first episode was made in 2009 at Mirail Housing State, a great set designed by architect Candilis in the 1960s on the outskirts of Toulouse. The second episode (co-produced by Kadist Art Foundation and the production company of L’âge d’or) is held in the Paris suburbs, in Pierrefitte, with dropouts and college officials AFPAD (Association for education, prevention and access to rights). In this episode they present youths with different social backgrounds who do not quite confirm the stereotypes that the media and politicians are trying to create. For this work, Moser and Schwinger followied Jacques Rancière’s hypothesis that “the real must be fictionalized to be thought.” The work of Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger is constructed around a research work engaging architects, sociologists, journalists or historians, in order elaborate a cross-cultural discourse and methodology to make films. Their work questions recent history departing from political and social facts while staging sources of contemporary reality in order to facilitate a platform for the discussion of a conflict.