The Menteur 2017 Edition by The Menteur

Hold on, let me see, by Alice Gauthier stone lithograph 45 x 70 cm 2014

Alice/Rob interview

Contents 4 Editors’ Note 6 Tracy Yarr 8 Arisa Eguchi 11 Phil O’Neill 12 Lucy McCloskey 16 Jane Hartshorn 19 Frank Andrews 20 Zach Watson 25 Lou Yavar 26 Alice Bryant 30 Zuzanna Wesolowska 32 Emanuel Poche 37 Gabriela Manchini 38 Rosa Lucy Rogers 41 Max Caskie 47 Rebecca Barnstein 50 Carrie Chappell 51 Victoria Nash 54 Rob Miles 58 Review: Grace Thomson 63 Interview: Emanuel Poche 69 Interiew: Ellen ffrench

Ryan

Untitled, Ryan Doubiago, 2017

Letter from the Editors At the present moment, distance is many things. The reduction of distance in our modern world has not always produced unity but division, alienation, and estrangement. The gaps between left and right widen, loneliness increases; traversing distance can be seen as a negative invasion rather than a feat of achievement. The ability of people to close distance causes anxiety, compelling people to put up boundaries, stake out territories, and reaffirm identities to quell an overwhelming rush of cohesion. Distance also produces alienation and envy, allowing people to condemn and judge at a safe proximity. Separation breeds dissociation, allowing us to inhabit spaces yet maintain disconnected. Likewise, distance can help us re-evaluate and discover other viewpoints, cultures, and ways of thinking (as evidenced by the long tradition of artists and writers who have chosen Paris as a place of creative exile, many of whom are represented in this magazine.) Distance can provide clarity, insight, and space, as well as offering boundless freedom to create and explore. Art and literature are both forces that help overcome distance, that reach out and connect people of difference to bring them closer together. That is why we’ve chosen it as the theme of this year’s edition of The Menteur; in a world of ever-present and mounting division, tension, and friction – fiction, poetry, and artwork interrogating and responding to what it means to be “à distance” is fortifying and paramount. We hope this edition may relieve, amuse, and provoke your ideas of distance and bring you closer together. With thanks to the Paris School of Arts and Culture, and our cover artists, Alice Gauthier and Rob Miles. A little distance might not be such a bad thing.

Ellen, Grace, and the Menteurs

Printed in Canterbury, Kent UNITED KINGDOM

La Rupture, by Adelina Nedelcu, 2017

The Far Side of the Périphérique Tracy Yarr

A face made of sheets, chipped Greek statuary. Gray stone drape. Is this a friend of Frederic's and Jenny's who has intruded on my solitude? I hover in the door frame and watch the finger that pushed and pushed the doorbell dig a bit of mucous from the corner of a cataract. I shiver, riveted by this fleck of milk skin he flicks into the street. Just beyond it lies the square. My clothes are thin. As I catch my breath the exhaust and the dog shit hit me. Hiss. I’m sorry? HONK. “Sorry?” My India rubber face bends into a grimace. Hiss ssScrrRREACH. HISS. Sounds shove me around like pushy customers. Sorry? While I strain to understand, the house is behind my back, playing charades: three words. First word, one syllable. She? Yes! Second word, one syllable, she stands, she shivers, she is. IS? Yes! Third word, two syllables: alone? She is ALONE? Yes! laughs the house. She is alone! C’mon in! Under the street noise the man is speaking mud. I try to swallow meaning but it squishes grit between my teeth. On the far shore of the stream of buses I hear schoolyard sounds. Squeals and shrieks behind a high wall. What is it you want? A knife? A KNIFE? What sort of a knife? You want to know can you have a knife? A woman pulling a toddler is three feet away. I watch her over the man’s shoulder as they get caught in an eddie on the corner. Sweater buttoned, hand plucked, back into the flow. Or a pair of scissors? He'll take the knife [or the scissors] and then he'll bring them back. A dark head bobs past yelling nonsense into white wires. Doppler effect. Sorry? A knife. A knife. Or scissors. He is cutting, then slicing and sweeping his arm up the hill, then again shredding the air between us. But his words are mostly mud. Sorry? You want me to give you a knife? I look at him, I scan the empty parked cars which line the groove of narrow pavement cleaving the stone walls. There is nothing to cut. Sorry? For what does he need this

knife? He’s going to MUD and go up the street to MUD and more miming cutting with scissors and then after he’s MUD MUD MUD he’ll bring them right back. I tell him no. I’m not from the house. I can't understand him, and no, he can't have a knife. No. No scissors. No scissors, no knife. No. This is not my home. I cannot give him someone else’s knife. Mud. MUD, mud: Money. Money. Money to feed the children. His right forearm transects a yawning plastic zipper while liver spots map out the nylon expanse beneath his left shoulder in the place over his heart. Food for the children. The poor, hungry children. Now he’s initiating a game of “Patty Cake” while the school children’s screams behind the high wall on the far shore beyond the buses build to a crescendo, but his right hand changes its trajectory and goes back to creating topography on that smooth sea of coat. He's lying. I know it. But I can't take the chance. I leave him standing in the street as I close the heavy metal door on that grey face and grind the mechanisms in the lock. The house begins a low chuckle as I tear up the stairs but its tone turns to scorn when I start digging through my wallet. I ignore it and run thumping back down the stairs, sweaty coins in my palm. More grinding and I swing the door wide open. There he is, waiting. A true believer. I say, "I'm sorry. It's nothing,” as I place the coins in his hand. I feel the need to add: “I really do not have anything." I am lying, he knows it, but he thanks me anyway as my face contorts again. The now taunting vaulted stairwell jeers over my shoulder as I lock up as fast as I can. I turn to face the hollows of the building, my back now pressed against the impossible door. I wipe my palms on my leggings and say loudly, to whoever is listening, “Ah, shut the fuck up.”

A Nationality and a Name “ (Konnichiwa) Japanese”

by Arisa Eguchi

New people call my nationality more than my name “Is that true that … Japanese are always on time? they are hard workers? they respect the silence? But you are not like that…” Today Again No one calls my name Every time they call me the nationality, I become more Japanese “Why do you pass the paper rudely?” “Why don’t you put the chair back when you leave your seat in a restaurant?” “Why don’t you think about next person who is going to sit here?” I hate impolite people! If you call me Japanese, why don’t you know such important things?

feel better than me I always choose to be worse than he or she The way I think seems easier to live The border between the culture and my values becomes more blurred and blurred But the one who questioning is me and it sounds so mean Just because they don’t call my name The image of Japan they have is beautiful But the Japanese food they eat is so expensive and not so delicious So I can’t be the Japanese that they have imagined I look for colours in monotonous Paris Wait a little bit longer, soon my favorite season comes

When someone throws cold words at me, I feel like I am forced to be cold as well I should say “NO” if I don’t like something But if someone gets hurt, I’d rather that I get hurt myself instead of him or her If someone, not only my sister, could

A Name of the Writer

by Arisa Eguchi

The weather and her feelings are similar It’s raining The clouds and sky are grey and grey It’s hard to distinguish which is which

“What kind of sauce would you like?” an owner of Panini shop asks her “What sauces do you have?” She’s curious

But she needs to go outside because her stomach is crying and craving for food Once her friend told her to just eat when you feel lonely, just drink when you get angry

“Arisa, Mayonaise, BBQ, and…” A guy who she met for the first time calls her name He is big, he looks old, he smells sweaty… But doesn’t he look cool…!? She feels her face blushing “Why or how do you know my name?” She thinks she should have put make up on better. At least a lip gloss.

The plan made with the friend, having dinner together tonight, makes her feel better She always thinks If she drinks her favorite colour of pink rose all at once, she would become able to understand all the languages If she eats all the peanuts like her skin colour without biting, she would became able to speak any languages

Before she asks, she realizes that the first word he said was a name of spice not her name “Harissa” She quickly chooses BBQ sauce

She looks for the cross cut all the time even though she knows there isn’t any While she thinks of it, she decides not to do

At least she could feel one of French people calling her name She’s glad that her story is different from what she wrote

her homework today

Before the next rain drop lands, her black shoe steps on a puddle

Gloucester Beach, Bass Rocks - © Edward Hopper This ekphrastic poem was inspired by “Gloucester Beach, Bass Rocks” by Edward Hopper (1882-1967). The artwork, in watercolour and pencil on paper, was executed in 1924.

Gloucester Beach, Bass Rocks by Edward Hooper by Phil Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill

Parasols, hats, shawls wrapped against the cold. Where are you standing? How long have you been there? Why won't you be with them? Is it because they are so beautiful in the distance?

Distance is a thing (we created) Lucy McClockley

We crouch on the balcony step, the two of us, our edges pressed together. Close but not close at all. I sit with my hands by my side, gripping the brick. It is cool, rough and I can feel the gritty indentations it presses into my skin. He has a bottle of beer sitting beside him, I have a tumbler of gin and tonic. The taste of lemons is in my mouth, an attempt to mask the cheapness of the supermarket gin. The evening is warm and we watch through the gaps of the railing as people make their way into the church opposite. The van has been parked outside it all day, the signs inviting people to come in. Give blood, they read. Pictures of red hearts. I imagine the people lying there, the slow pulling of blood into tubes and bottles, their faces turned away from the secrets of their bodies. Condensation slips down glass. He lights a cigarette and holds it down by his side, away from me. Even now I hope. That he will say all of those things Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve wanted him to say. Those conversations Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve imagined to myself; I walk along the street being him and being me. Then I worry that my mouth might actually be making the shapes of the words I am forcing him to say and I stop. I feel the warmth of him against my left side. Sometimes my bare

skin will brush against his, an empty echo of the skin we have pushed together before. How can this make me shiver when we have sprawled in a sweaty knot of limbs, our bodies open? I think about those millimetres where he touches me, my face turned away but everything else focused only there. I don’t say anything. We watch the people. The breeze pushes the last swirls of smoke across us. The smell reminds me of all those nights out we had: drinks, cigarettes, dancing, sex. I know what he’s going to say. Or rather, I know what he’s not going to say. We’ve sat here so many times. I sip my drink, the ice cubes bruising my lips with cold, the tonic flat and lifeless. He points out someone coming from the church and we watch the people, making up lives for them. He says something that makes me laugh and I use it as an excuse to squeeze his knee. His jeans have rips in them and my fingers press into skin there. We drink our drinks. He shifts his leg until the length of his thigh is pressing against mine. I lean into his shoulder and wait to see if he pulls away. He moves his arm back a little, making room for me. These are the things we do. He lets me in. Or holds me away. And I wait, I wait We finish our drinks sitting on the now shadowy step as the last of the light disappears over the clump of red terraced rooves. My leg has gone numb and I can’t feel where he touches me anymore, but I don’t move. I turn my face towards him and smell the familiar mix of his aftershave and the softer smell of his hair, his skin. The heat of the afternoon has left its mark in a faint hint of sweat and salt. I think about the times I have pressed my face into the space of shoulder and throat and breathed him in. I want to put my hand on the back of his head and stroke the shorter hair there, knowing exactly the soft feel of it. I want to be closer. He moves away, ready to stand. I stand and wait for him to say something. He tells me he has a present for me and we go inside. He hands me a package tucked in a black and

white striped paper bag. Creased, the corners well worn. It is a notebook, the creamy pages blank. Waiting. He gives me a card. He passes it to me whilst saying he will miss me when I’m gone. He tells me not to read it now. To wait until he has left. We stand by the front door and he looks down at his trainers while I twist a ring I’m wearing round and round. I don’t know what to say to him. Life has created spaces between us; pockets, cracks. Places we cannot go; fissures we cannot cross. We made them. We let them be made. An awkward hug. Stay in touch. My hand grips the card, the edge damp with my sweat. I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I open the door. He leaves and I cross to the window, waiting for him to reach the street. I watch him walking away. It isn’t like the movies, he doesn’t look back and wave. He doesn’t look back at all. I open the card. Nothing but the usual platitudes. I don’t understand the last word, or perhaps it’s just letters. AML (all my love)

Could you come with me, by Alice Gauthier stone lithograph and drawing 63 x 85 cm 2016

Arbroath to Carnoustie by Jane Hartshorn

You see a figure in the distance, outline of padded jacket, black caterpillar hunched in the cold. You turn to look behind you. A thin line of fire separates sea and sky, running 4 miles until it reaches the nearest town. To the left of you waves suck on a red gum of sand, to the right a fence dissects the dunes, the glint of a railway line beyond. It will be dark in an hour. You can only go forwards. Carnoustie is a mile ahead, and you can see its smudges of light, imagine windows violet with the glow of TV sets. Cups of tea.

As much as you would like to call this fear irrational, you realise you have taken a risk, coming out here alone, when dusk has started to powder the sky, and bats flicker past your face like eyelashes. You keep walking towards the man, push your hat above your brows. Watch him grow larger like the buzz of a bluebottle. Being alone doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t frighten you, but being one of two people along 5 miles of sand does, especially when that person is a man, and doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have

Inside a Flat in Paris, by Adjoa Wiredu, 2017

I turn over

by Frank Andrews I turn over and you’re sleeping facing the wall, almost touching the radiator. We’re about a foot apart. You’re wearing the t-shirt I give you when you forget your pyjamas, the one with Johnny Hallyday riding a Harley Davidson that I wore all the time when I first got to Paris. It’s bunched up around your tummy. I decide not to cuddle up to you for a moment. I look at your side moving ever so slightly up and down with your breath, the hairs on your arms, the group of moles on your lower back. A little family. I never get to do this. When we speak or we kiss or we make food I feel like I’m too close, too involved to actually look at you properly. I want an excuse to wake you up and talk to you, so I creak across the old wooden floor of the studio and put the kettle on. We’ve only got two mugs. Fortunate. The two teabags stand to attention and the water starts to boil. Out of the attic window the sky is grey, and I’m thankful for it.

BLIGHT by Zach Watson The girl, Ophelie, she lay in holocaust, sweat pouring down her forehead, pale skin illuminated against the black faux-leather couch. Small white boxes discarded on the floor, empty bottles of medicines on the tables like beer cans after a party. She had what he called Xenolepsy, or the time-change sickness, or pressurized-cabin disease. It always happened when they took a long flight, when they were surrounded by signs in different languages, when they drank their coffee in the morning in a new way. There were many more similarities than differences though, people still had noses where noses were supposed to be, still had mouths and hair and nails and shoes and pants and jackets, but it was him, the hypochondriac with the over-active imagination that was exaggerating every little difference from the amount of water in the toilet to the way that a light switched felt to the touch. It was him that was making up new symptoms, that imagined boils on her, that saw the sheets stained bile green, that thought of wooden ships and masts, rats on cargo holds with oriental fleas, that watched her body among the many dead being carried off in a wagon pulled by a horse. It was him running down to the pharmacy pointing to things, then nodding yes, even when he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t

know, coming back with bags full of remedies that he scarcely understood, instructing her of the quantities and dosages that he was inventing on the spot. Oh the mess of it all, of moving to a different country, of coming back from the pharmacy only to forget which one was her sister’s apartment, and then knocking on random doors, and then trying to explain to the scared tenant on the other side why he had knocked. People in cities didn’t like when strangers randomly knocked on their doors, especially when it was impossible to explain why. That was something he learned quick. Her sister had told him that everyone was fighting to live here. For a few days he’d been thinking about that, the all-inclusivity of the life of the city dweller, work to be, to buy expensive furniture, drink French 75s, eat steak tartar. And that’s when you’re on top. What if he never made it to the pinnacle? Were cities built upon the fallacy that everyone has the opportunity to go up? Did that keep the city alive? And if he made it, what if he didn’t have taste? Would he just pretend? Would he work his life away to pretend he liked nice, expensive things? She tried to get a bank account the other day, but they wouldn’t give her one because she didn’t have a job or a place to live. And they couldn’t’ get a place to live because she didn’t have a bank account nor a rental history in Paris. So it seemed to them rather paradoxical, that you couldn’t live anywhere for the first time unless you lived somewhere first. That made her sick too. She didn’t like illogical bureaucratic rules. He didn’t either for that matter. He got up from sitting beside her, to do something, what he wasn’t sure. He was sick of being inside her sister’s apartment, not having anything to do, taking care of her. He went to the fridge and found a carrot and a pot of crème fraiche. He went into the bathroom and peed. He walked to the only window in the apartment and looked down at the

the courtyard, at all the bicycles chained up, at the one single tree with no leaves and the square planter of bricks that held it in place. He looked up and saw someone in the apartment across from him. A man in his underwear looked out from his window, stuck his finger up his nose, pulled out a big wet booger, and stuck it in his mouth. Satisfied he then stuck his hand down his pants, wiggled at his crotch, and walked out of sight. “You wouldn’t believe what I just saw,” he said. “What you see?” she murmured from under the warm, humid rag that covered her face. “I just saw a guy eat a booger and then scratch his balls,” he said. “Where you see this?” “Across the apartment courtyard,” he said. “What’s the apartment courtyard?” she said. “It’s the space in between the buildings,” he said. “I don’t understand you,” she said. “You know, it’s the place where there isn’t buildings,” he said. “You just said the same thing,” she said sitting up now. “You never explain me well.” “What!” he exclaimed. “It’s really not important.” “I think it’s important,” she said. “I think it’s important that we are in my country now but we speak your language and you don’t even explain me well.” “It’s the open space in a building where there are benches and people and garbage cans,” “C’est une cour?” she asked herself as her phone started to ring. “I don’t know this number. I don’t answer it.”

“What? Do answer it. What! Maybe it’s the bank or the apartment or a job.” She answered the phone, “Allô, oui, c’est Ophélie.” He watched her impatiently, not understanding anything. He desperately wanted to know who it was and what they were saying. She hung up the phone. “Who was it?” “I have a job Friday,” she said. “Like I tell you. No more talking, okay. My head is bad.” And like that, she lay back down, put the rag back on her face and said, ”You make me a new towel now. This one is cold.”

Untitled

by Lou Yavar my foolish boat is leaving thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no one to wave to this time and the shore looks peaceful I throw salt over my shoulder seasoning the waters but there are no tears schools of fish splash about in my wake but they too soon lose interest thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nary a whale in sight

Couchsurfing by Alice Byrant

We’re moving sofa to sofa, couch to couch. Every time I ring the doorbell, feel the next touch, hear that hug rustling against my ear, it’s an old familiar kiss. We’re moving; always moving – through the streets, through the bars, running each other’s bodies through each other’s fingers. It’s not compulsory, but it all starts with a toke, a massage, a plunge into the pool. There are no rules. Stories are our currency. When people are constantly in motion, that’s all they have in their pockets: where they’re going next, where they’ve just been, what they’re doing here and there. There is no ‘I own’, there is no ‘I want’, unless you can fit that into a suitcase or the palm of your hand. We’re all wrapped up and enraptured in the immediate now; it consumes us, tidal flowing in and out, in and out, until we are gasping and breathless and giddy. The men perch on the end of tired sofas and speak about the times they were in motion. There are those who can move and those who are desperate to move, travelling through people rather than places. They invite them into their world – for four hours, for four days, for four weeks at a time. ‘Make yourself at home’, they say blithely. What is home to us now? Is it kindness? What colour is it, and what does it believe in? I think this to myself on the bus, watching the city pass me by, veering to the left and the left and the left of the window. Does it matter what it looks like, or if it has my mother in, or if my body left dust on all of the books? In the couchsurfing community, people meet other people sporadically, but they all believe in the same idea. They all hold a belief with such

conviction, they hold it in the palm of their hand, like a fist. The ethos of couch surfing is sharing. It’s not about money. ‘It’s about experiences’, I am told over and over, like a mantra. Tell the next person. Pay it forward. In Oakland I come back from the bathroom and Greg is running his hand along my friend’s arm. There’s coconut oil in the creases of his hands and incense on the table; the atmosphere that’s been cultivated is one of shared countercultural comforts, but we’re not allowed to use any of his butter with our bread. He hovers around us like the smoke, he touches our bodies like they’re his. He plays us flamenco guitar and we smoke weed until we are all melting together. I’m not sure that I want to - I don’t want to, I don’t want to. He undoes my bra. Click. The kettle boils in another apartment in Santa Rosa, my friend Georgia makes the coffee. We drink four litres of his milk but we help to mow his lawn, the wasps circling around our heads like conspiracy theories. The sun sets and we eat together, chewing stories under the moon. In Seattle our host takes us to the park to do acro-yoga and he balances our bodies on his feet. I close my eyes, flop like a dandelion into the air, allowing my body to be suspended. Letting him lift me and trusting that his thighs could take my weight was most exhilarating of all. When I lost my virginity I remember being so acutely aware that someone else was finally finding me attractive. Here, I found myself so aware of being capable. If he dropped me, I would fall, and that was okay. But he didn’t, and I was spun and dipped and carried, a feather on the wind. In an age where we’re more isolated than ever, connection is fleeting, connection is physical. But we’re all so busy, moving to the left and to the left and to the left, green pastures out of bus windows. We try to hold on to the ideas as the people slip away.

Nation

by Adjoa Wiredu I see you. Tall. Orange hat. Bony oval face. Long limbs with shiny skin like mine. Black waterproof, zipped up. I see you ahead. You look lost. Stopping. Starting. Circled by a wall of tiny orange, blue, white and grey tiles. It’s drip drip damp; stale down here. We all offload and it’s loud, a rush to get the green 9, the turquoise 6, the blue 2, the red RERA. For some, it’s up the stairs, down the vault, around the corner, heavy legs shuffle through the long concrete tube, up the stairs, a walk through the ticket barriers, up the last set of stairs, then air. An easy exit 5. But you stay down here.  Punctured air. Lurking in the tunnels, on hold for us. I saw you yesterday and last week. Yesterday you stopped in the crowd and crouched to fix your lace, looked around and again behind, got up, turned and stumbled. ‘Pardon, pardon’, looking down at the floor. You had a brown laptop bag but it looked empty, dirty. What’s in it? Now, you walk ahead, slowly, bottom half squashed in the crowd, shuffling. We turn off and lose a dozen. We drag our feet across the hard floor and up the stairs. Two armed policemen stand at the barriers and to the side of me now I see you turn and I catch a glimpse as you walk back through the hollow tunnel.

Seeking Ugliness

by Zuzanna Wesolowska Aesthetically, missing Warsaw vibes. *** Spiritualizing here, among austerity, protuberance and irregularity, shuddering eyesore, casual kitch and minimalism of electrical wiring. Sophisticating brutality of urban panorama. Considering windows grimy, graffiti disfigured. Marveling tags on subway’s trains, garbage throughout and ripped paper Dior bags beside the bin. Inhaling pollution, smelly corn and stinky sweet chestnuts. Paris is nice. And so, I’m seeking ugliness. Contrariwise. Longing for camp, misunderstanding and absurd. Observing sadness, misery. Refugees on large mattress, dirty glaze of subway stations, never-ending klaxons’ noise, high staging, shop windows loaded down with souvenirs, ripped posters of random expositions, random advertisings of random éblouissant comedies. Feeling that sacral flashes and metaphysical bubbling of the city. Noticing boulevards’ manifesto, pavements’ hidden autoportraits. And so, confronting naturalistically visions with reality by telling ironic, dismal jokes. Cause tourist’s consciousness is all about Eiffel Towers and Louvres. And that is not true. This is an abuse. Intensity of cultures, cosmopolitism, contrasts. Bright faces, dark faces, shades, neons. People in suits with suitcases, tramps with backpacks inside which they carry the rests of their glorious past lifetimes, begging for a penny, saying they had lost their homes. LOSS PARAGRAPH. CHANGE IT ONLY CONSCIOUSLY Workers, psychos, musicians. Christians and Muslims.

Paris is a mosaic. Transgressing. Paris is superfluity of everything and nothing. *** Unaesthetically missing Warsaw vibes and finding them in Paris, as obscure as they are, as I remember them to be absorbing

A Picture of Your Dad by Emanuel Poche

You can hardly remember a time during which your dad and you were openly affectionate towards one another. This is why it came to you as such a hurdle when you two hugged for the first time, barely eighteen, leaving for your undergrad in England, and as such a shock when he began crying softly into your shoulder. At the time, you had no idea he was weeping. It sounded more like a whisper goodbye. It broke your heart to find out from Jana, his new wife, that your dad actually loves you. You realized that until then, you weren’t really sure whether he did. And you love him, too, you just can’t formulate the words to tell him in person. You are alike in that way. It feels like you are building a bridge by piling a bunch of pebbles in a bottomless chasm. Maybe that’s because you barely know each other. He doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, that you are gay. And you don’t know why he ever married your mom, why your grandfather despised him, or why he thinks seeking therapy makes a man weak. You don’t know him at all. Most of us don’t realize that it is all subjective, this notion of trying to get to know your parents. They are as much the image we create of them as their real selves. There is a gulf between us no matter how much we love them, and the reverse is also true. We will never get to know them, no matter how much we’d like to, long to, even. We are tied to them, unable to step out and take a good, hard look. It’s not easy for you to see how knowing this would have made the relationship better, or how it will solve things. Sorry, Dad, I was just hoping you’d become Lorelai Gilmore, somehow! No, you’re not that gullible. Perhaps this is one of those mountains that you can only climb after you get a gym membership. It would be easier to look for the fire exit in a crowded venue than to talk to your dad about the years you have suffered under the weight of depression. Will you be forever stuck waiting for the perfect day to talk to him about all of this? What will that day look like?

Will one of you have to be dying in order to invite the vulnerability neither of you can muster in a normal setting? What has to be at stakes for you to finally be brave? You could start by buying him a really snazzy sweater for Christmas. And then you could drain the anger youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been holding onto by joining a knitting club. You could learn to hug him without any awkwardness. Eventually, somehow, you could bring yourself to tell him you love him. Though there may not be an easy solution to the problem. You know this. You have known this for a while, but you are powerless to stop wishing your father would magically turn into the kind of person who hugs without limits and chirps French songs from the 80s around the house as he bakes pies. However, you know that days and days and days will give in to one another, and then days and months and years will follow. Nothing will change and you will become comfortable with the relationship you have built with your dad, neither of you noticing how you never appreciate the other, never feel proud of the other. There will be a time you will be swept with sadness, and regret your ineptitude to express the desire to be held by him, to be cradled to sleep by him. But you will let go of this. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how it happens. Your life will become monotonous, lacking. You will be cursed to miss him. Or perhaps not. Only you can make your memories not ache with the echoes of him. This time things will change. You are taking the portrait of your dad off the wall. Go talk to him. Go be with your dad.

A Distance Stone Lithograph with hand colouring 2017 Alice Gauthier & Rob Miles

The Patio, by Grace Thompson

Vie by Gabriela Manchini

La ligne cesse d’être droite et elle commence à osciller à avoir de diverses formes. Elle danse. Est-elle un dessin? Je la regarde de loin. Elle s’approche, m’entoure. Je la suis. La distance a disparu. Ici. Là-bas. Je suis.

You are Everywhere, 2017 by Rosa Lucy Rogers

Between Two Lands, 2017 by Rosa Lucy Rogers

Distance

by Max Caskie

Distance #1 I’m measuring my pillow with my thumb and index finger, stretching them out like a ruler. It looks like the universal sign that accompanies shouting, ‘rock on’ at someone. I try to encompass the whole thing, but the height of it escapes my measuring device. I sigh and let my breath hit my knuckles, which sends my minds eye to small animals and mausoleums. I press deeper into the feathers until my tendons hurt. The bedside table vibrates, and an invisible rope from the ceiling heaves me out of the horizontal half world I’ve been lying in. 11:03AM: ‘Venez-vous pour obtenir l’abat-jour? Mon adresse est 26 Rue Bénard, 75014. Flavia.’ My eyes look up toward the invisible rope, but now it is short and white, and ends in a bare lightbulb. It hasn’t been changed since the time we borrowed Michael’s ladder to hang pictures. ‘Lampshade.’ I mumble. The floorboards creak as I get out of bed and walk over to the window. I pull it up and a breeze brings the sound of the neighbourhood into my room. Horns, shouting, music, birds, sirens, even a helicopter. I hope ‘PascalG_1989’ gets back to me about the fan. The picture you tacked onto the bathroom mirror looks at me whilst I brush my teeth. Past me looks happy. We look happy. Though I imagine every couple in Paris has a photo booth medley of 4 alternating serious and wacky poses. Thoughtful. Tongues out and hands behind ears. Duck face. Reading a book with oversized sunglasses. I sniff some jeans, put some shoes on without socks, and lock the door behind me. Two police officers are questioning a man outside the Diderot metro. One of them has her hand resting on the butt of her gun, which is a SIG Sauer. I know this because a character in one of my favourite books used the same model, and for a while I imagined what a SIG Saucer looked like. I’ve always thought I was slightly dyslexic. The metro is hot and crowded and I get lost on the street, but I find the apartment eventually. Flavia is wearing a ‘Brigitte’ t-shirt and invites me into her hallway. Parisian hip hop is playing behind a closed door. ‘My son.’ She gestures to the door. ‘Here it is. Voila,’ She picks up the lamp, ‘you have good taste.’ You did have good taste. Distance #2 It’s raining and the street smells of wet leather. I’m walking through the stalls, observing the tourists who are huddled under the tarping, examining handbags in feigned interest. The sellers pay the customers no attention as they dismantle their stalls. They move and shout with military speed as they load the vans, and I wonder where they’re going. I pass through the market and stop at an intersection, staring at a neon green light glowing through the cracks in the pavement. A hand touches my shoulder, and I turn around.

‘Yeah,’ I look at my watch, ‘that sounds good.’ I have an hour before I need to be anywhere, and it’s been a while. He shelters me from the drizzle with the umbrella and we catch up on the walk there. The past jogs beside us as we reminisce. The first attempt at band rehearsal, Joe and the Blenheim guys, where are they now? The smell of the car breaking down when we drove to Norfolk on a whim with Lucy and Beth. Girlfriend? Broke up two months ago. We’re laughing as we walk through the entrance of the bar. It’s narrow and dark, and besides the woman behind the bar it’s empty. A watercolour of an industrial Paris hangs behind her. ‘Well,’ Alex shakes his umbrella, ‘pick a booth and I’ll get the drinks. Negroni? Or just a beer?’ ‘I’ll just have a coffee thanks mate.’ ‘Are you serious?’ ‘For almost two years. Decaf if they have it.’ I pat him on the back and head toward a booth. I stare at my phone until I hear a saucer being put down on the table. ‘No decaf.’ ‘Thanks man.’ I put my phone on my lap. The conversation carried on down the street without us. ‘I met up with Steve last week,’ he sips his drink, ‘remember the time he got so drunk we convinced him that the Central Republic of Disbelief was a country?’ I look down and press my phone to check the time. ‘Yeah,’ I smile and drop a sugar cube into the cup, ‘how is he?’ Distance #3 ‘Can I swim under England?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, so, the cliffs of Dover‘Right.’ ‘If we were looking at them from a boat, and I swam over to them.’ ‘Mmhmm.’ ‘And say I could hold my breath for, umm, infinity, and, and the pressure wouldn’t hurt my ears.’ ‘You wonder how far down would they go?’ ‘Yeah. I mean, I know a country can’t, it can’t float‘Otherwise they’d bump into each other.’ ‘But they did that once, didn’t they?’ ‘You’re right, and they’re going to again, in a very very long time.’ ‘How long? Will we be here?’ ‘Ohh thousands and thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands. I don’t think anyone will be here.’

‘Everyone would have died?’ ‘I don’t know, Smack. Maybe, or maybe we’ve gone to live on another planet.’ ‘I -, I don’t understand how they can do that… if, if they don’t float.’ ‘Well, think about when we go swimming. When you’re in the shallow end, your head is above the water, but from the shoulders down you’re in the drink. But are you floating?’ ‘No.’ ‘How‘My feet are touching the floor.’ ‘So, say if England was my head, and France was your head-’ ‘Can I be Spain?’ ‘Sure. So, if Spain is your head, and someone tried to swim under you, it wouldn’t work. ‘They’d hit my belly.’ ‘Exactamundo. Right there.’ ‘Get off! It tickles.’ ‘Sorry? I’m a country not a person. I can’t understand you. ‘Dad! Pleaaaaase.’ ‘Ok, ok. You’re safe… for now. But back to our countries in the pool.’ ‘So we can’t float, and, and, wait, we can’t move. But we’ll crash into each other one day.’ ‘Or drift. Drift away from each other.’ ‘Dad?’ ‘Hmm? Yeah. Some countries, depending where they are in the pool, will drift further away, and some will come closer. Because, clever kicks?’ ‘Because they…errr. Hmm. I don’t know.’ ‘Well something has to be moving‘The floor! Different parts of the floor are moving.’ ‘You are you’re father’s son.’ ‘You’re so weird.’ ‘Just as weird as – oh, hang on, phone. It’s mum. Hi. Yeah, good. Ok, that’s no problem. Yeah. No, I’m with him now, we’re learning about – no. No I didn’t send it yet. I will. No, I know. We all have bills, Sarah. See you in ten.’ ‘Is mum in the pool, Dad?’ ‘Of course she is, Smack.’

Distance #5 ‘Don’t open a new tab.’ She grabs my hand. ‘What?’ ‘Just go on my history and click any page. I don’t like opening new tabs.’ ‘You’re aware it doesn’t conserve any energy or do anything beneficial whatsoever?’ ‘Yes. It’s just a weird habit. Haven’t you got any?’ She releases her grip. ‘I – hmm. Probably.’ ‘What about when you were younger?’ ‘Oh. Loads. On long car journeys, I’d kiss every streetlight we passed on the motorway.’ I click on a previous tab. “25 Things you didn’t know about Paris”. ‘As in, you’d blow them a kiss? Didn’t your lips hurt after like 5 minutes?’ ‘I was training them for situations like this.’ I lean in until our lips are touching. ‘I don’t know why I kiss such a cheesy mouth.’ She murmurs. ‘I’ve seen you eat an entire wheel of melted brie,’ I run my hand through her hair and turn back to the laptop. ‘Is this the site you used?’ I turn to her, ‘what? Look, it’s not that weird. I just pouted at them, like this.’ ‘Yeah that’s it,’ she laughs, ‘what about now? Or do you still pout at streetlights?’ I think about last night, how I told her I was busy. Where I went to. Who I was with. What I paid for. Is that a habit? Or is there something wrong with me? My finger clicks a sidebar. My mind’s eye is looking to the right, at hers, which are looking at my profile. This is the moment when I am supposed to say something, to confess. The net is my own construction but now we both feel it’s weight, her holding it, myself underneath. Conversations like this are easy to visualize, because the moments they create become forces in the room, they become energized atoms that gravitate toward the words you are supposed to say. And the kill switch from apex to nadir is so fast in real time but when you are there, surrounded by the particles, you think of all the realities: where the stars are on the seabed and jaguars have six legs and where the ocean is the sky, we are sat here in this room, and we have this discussion, and in some rooms, I say the right thing. In others, I get it wrong. But in this room, I say nothing, the atoms dissipate, the moment gone.

Distance #6

‘What are you staring at?’ ‘The swans, look.’ I point to the water. We’re stood where the three canals meet and form a large body, and each canal is frozen over but it is not cold enough to freeze the center, with a shore of ice forming around it. ‘It’s like a white beach, no?’ ‘They sort of look like carriers, and the ducks look like troops.’ Asad says. ‘Mmm.’ I light a cigarette, looking at the ducks exploring the frozen land whilst the swans wait at the shoreline. ‘Come brother. If you really want to stand on the ice, we can do it at the bridge. It’s almost midnight.’ Asad pulls at his arm. ‘Ja alles klaar Bruder.’ I exhale and watch the swans through the smoke. ‘Do you remember a few years ago, when we couldn’t even see the moon because of the smoke from the fireworks?’ Asad says. ‘Yeah,’ I laugh, ‘I also remember that night because you kissed Yesenia and we spent the first few hours of the New Year hiding from her cousins in a bush.’ ‘I’ve picked out the best bush in Berlin for tonight.’ We laugh and walk along the cobbled street toward the bridge, my arm over Asad’s shoulder. We’re singing a song from our fathers, who learnt it from theirs, but the lyrics are sung in a high pitch so we try and reach the highest notes but our voices give out, which makes us laugh more. ‘Guten Rutsch!’ I say to a couple who walk past us, but they say nothing. ‘Ignore it, Hakim. Look, here’s the bridge.’ Asad says. I smell the gunpowder and listen to the whoops and cheers. There must be at least twenty people of all ages, setting off fireworks like madmen, slipping on the ice, seeing who can hold on to them longest, but not too long as there are children as well. The sky around the bridge is weighed down with smoke, and the colours that explode in the mist look like blurred traffic lights. ‘It’s time, quick!’ Asad says.

I unzip my rucksack and hand Asad four fireworks, and keep four for myself. We find a space on the bridge. ‘Frohes Neues Jahr!’ I hear above the sound of a dozen fireworks. ‘Allah hu Akhbar!’ Asad says, and hugs me as the fireworks explore. ‘Allah hu Akhbar!’ We chant, setting of our fireworks. I smile at a child a few feet away, and I see his mother’s hand descend upon his shoulders, she is staring at me. Everyone is staring.

6AM/10PM Skype Call

by Rebecca Barnstein

What are you thinking with your serious car crash face staring into space? I rhyme because it makes your eyebrow, the right, lift in amusement. Stones don’t talk and deep wells don’t have hearts, but you’re a miracle, a terror in the best way. You are the only thing about home that matters. I wrote you a poem, be happy! “I’m too tired to emote,” you say. “This is where you say ‘you never emote, Michael.’” I am saying it, I’m writing it down because jokes over oceans ring with a different bell tone like a broken cell phone. I rhymed again for your amusement. Time is just numbers on a wall, and isn’t it strange how we both exist now but only one of us ever gets the sun?

Untitled Eleven, by Grace Thomspon

Untitled, by Ryan Doubiago

Dévisager

by Carrie Chappell (He was right) In Alabama we stare But they do here too Stare They do They deFace you with incurious Judgment When I was young it was a fever Mother always Making up her own stories as she Stitched together glances (He wouldn’t say they were so Short) But I was brought up to look And hard too One thing we can Say for the South Is that we don’t mind poking Around And who’s to say it’s not a Virtue Vanity is looking At yourself all the time Couldn’t we say That’s maybe what it’s all About anyway A hope For the face we lost the first time we saw ourselves That stranger That Hostage of the body Ain’t me At all I’ve Had that thought But then I see my mother My aunt Their faces Mine Brown–green eyes repeating A wallpaper that won’t Iron off Their Faces that idle like foothills That Charm the school board In The damn middle of an afternoon Small Town or Paris, France, For heaven’s Sake What are you looking at

Tortoise

by Victoria Nash I carry Aberystwyth in the threads of my coat, in the scuffs on my boots; the sea salt, sand swept into the fibres I stand here in the Jardin du Luxembourg, thinking about the bench I sat on by the well looking out to sea, watching the starlings dance, considering the possibility of one-day maybe living in Paris.

Untitled by Anna Tran, 2017

Untitled 2 by Anna Tran, 2017

Crocodile Letter by Rob Miles 050416 Dear Crocodile, Do you consider your mandible as potential comb for soft lipped shiny eyed maidens? Do you wait for a dentist to dent, puncture and deflate? Do you tire of the pigeon rattle, scuffling amidst their detritus on the canopy? Do you need a good stretch? How about a bottle of wine to wash down your Sunday chicken? Can you feel your contours being traced and mapped by parties of artists? How did this crack in the glass occur? How about a double bass in the band, to beat and bend a melody underneath the action, to stick to and stretch like a shadow, unsquashable? What gives you the creeps? Toodle-oo, Robert

Dear Crocodile No 7, by Rob Miles stone lithograph 21 x 28 cm 2017

Dear Crocodile No 19, by Rob Miles stone lithograph 21 x 28 cm 2017

Dear Crocodile No 15, by Rob Miles stone lithograph 21 x 28 cm 2017

Cy Twombly

by Grace Thompson

Georges Pompidou Centre November 2016 – April 2017

I first discovered Cy Twombly ten years ago, while I was still in school art classes. Since then he has been a recurring influence on the creation of my own work, so I was excited to visit the Pompidou to see the largest retrospective of his work since his death in 2011. On each of the three times I visited the exhibition, I was surprised at the sparse numbers of visitors in attendance. Queues piled up for the neighbouring, darling-of-Paris, Magritte exhibition; but the Twombly galleries remained reverentially quiet, only the occasional remark about how ‘a kid could do this!’ disturbing the abundance of his white-ish canvases. The atmosphere seems appropriate to the paintings; despite the frantic mark making, the traces of gestures flung down and then removed, signs crossed out and redrawn elsewhere, an almost holy calm pervades his paintings. They are fully for viewing, and require nothing from us but for our gaze to linger and slip over them, yet we are often unwilliing to do this. Twombly’s style has proved hard to describe, being as it is completely unlike anything else. Critics have often reverted to describing his lyrical writing as graffiti, a term he expressly rejected. Graffiti is often used to show ownership of something, a demarcating of possession. Twombly’s work seems the opposite of this; a letting go of the real to allow stories, dreams and myths to wash over you. His dashes and daubs give just enough of a hint to spark imagination, without being checked by real life. Although launching his career in USA, with his Black Mountain College friends Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Twombly soon left them to live and work in Rome. Although still maintaining

contacts, and showing work in New York galleries, a sense of dislocation entered his work. Critics and reviews of his work Post America begin to stop talking of his paintings challenging the art world. As the show progresses, following the timeline of his oeuvre, Twombly’s subject matters themselves begin to drift off too, his interests retreating from the world to the ancient myths. In doing so, I find his heroic works loose some of the ambiguity which had made his earlier works scratchy and prickly to understand, or even behold. Compositional daring gives way to illustration, as his gestures get larger. In only one series does Twombly’s seem to use his obsession with the ancient world to puncture the realities of his time. He Created Nine Discourses on Commodus in 1963, after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Nine steely grey panels hold spatters of pink and gory paint daubs, that, held in a grid, appear to be being investigated, or caught in cross hairs. Commodus was a tyrannical Roman emperor, but you do not have to go to the library to experience the clash of cold metal and warm flesh which these canvases capture. To see all of the six decades of his work togehter was more underwhelming than encountering them individually or in single groups. Back in school, I fell for Twombly’s ability to describe a gesture; the very materiality of his use of paint seeming to break all rules of how I was being taught to create. This materiality is always present in his works, right up untill his huge, swircling series of Untitled (Bacchus), being composed more from the drips running down the canvas thanthe looping lines depicted. But seen on mass, the materiality, which in individual works seems so pinned to the artists gesture, seems to become just a style. With the subject matter becoming enchanted with distant myths, one feels Twombly’s hands and head become seperated as his career develops. The materiality becomes empty of the gesture, Twombly becomes an outsider eccentric, less and less able to connect with us.

63 Level 4 , by Grace Thompson

3, by Ryan Doubiago

Interview: Yelena Moskovitch Conducted by Emanuel Poche, 28/02/2017, 18:57, Paris, Bastille, two glasses of wine, one red, one white, one glass of water (instead of a carafe which I did ask for and never got)

So how are you today? I’m good, I’m good! The first question I wanted to ask is: what would you like your readers to question? Though not the plot of the novel itself, the novel is surreal and the reader the entire time has nothing else but to question what’s happening, so what would you like the reader to pose themselves as a question, to maybe accentuate the experience? I love how the way you put it. If the book gives anything, it is the desire to question. You got it, for me. In the terms of constructing my world, I like to incubate circumstances and see how they will rub against each other. Usually circumstances can a lot of times be tone. I really like paradoxal tones. I feel a certain fraternity with artists like David Lynch and Cindy Sherman. For example with David Lynch, I like how he rubs the macabre and the banal together and how it produces this beautifully odd vibration. For me, what I’m interested in is human poetry, the very private discreet inexpressible individuality and this social brutality around that, and also the feeling between romance and repulsion, or just something really tender and something, not just violence, but something that looks to expel or deny all tenderness and the space between. So what do I want the readers to question and feel? I guess I want them to tell me what they feel!. I’d like it to be above all an active allied experience. How have you done your research on gay men, especially around the loneliness gay men like César experience? I didn’t really do any research other than be gay myself (she laughs). No, but he’s one of the closest characters to me. I know that loneliness very well, I’m sure everyone, no matter their sexuality, experiences it, whether consciously or subconsciously, at some point.

What I wondered about César is whether his craving of attention and belonging, which brings him to punch his to-be-lover Stefan in the face, was born out of being a lonely foreigner in a big city, or toxic masculinity, or internalized homophobia? It’s about all three. I think he would have had that wherever he went, even if he had stayed in Mexico. I think anyone that feels like the Other in any sort of society will have that sort of gap to fill. When there are no examples of you, no visibility of who you are, in your community, in your society, in your media, it’s really isolating and painful, and it takes a lot of time to heal through that. I think one of the basic ways you are kind of separated is through your sexual orientation but it is a lot more nuanced, though not every gay person goes through what Cesar goes through. So when César punches Stefan, is that born out of his incredibly passionate personality, or was it born out of a self-destructive tendency, as he is scared of the physical love that manifests itself in Dresden? In part it is internalized homophobia, but I think it is more universal than that. I think he just really isn’t at the place where he could love himself physically or emotionally and he had to confront that in the moment with Stefan. When you don’t accept yourself or love yourself, it will show up in relationships. Then we tend to think it’s the other person but it’s really ourselves. The violence he feels towards Stefan, is the violence he feels towards himself. He’s hitting himself. He hates himself and spends so much time distracting himself from himself. It has nothing to do with Stefan. He can’t stand being affectionate or tender with anyone because he can’t give himself that, either. He doesn’t feel he deserves it. He finds himself repulsive and disgusting – but at the same time, every human being has the desire to be loved, to be cared for. It’s just safer when it’s fiction. That’s why it worked with Manny (a character Cesar portrays and is infatuated with) who’s not real. That’s why I wanted to ask you about the question of God, this search for something bigger than us, because the ‘us’ we create isn’t worth affection, or so the characters in your book believe. Did you have intentions of including religion in your novel? I think there is always a divine space around us. I believe that partly because of my theatre past where there was always the space of the divine and a space of shame and punishment, like heaven and hell, but also a bit because of my weird moment in a very religious community, going from (Ukrainian – then Soviet) communism to this ultra orthodox setting (as a Jewish refugee in the American Midwest), and then coming out of it. I came to America when I was little and had to learn Hebrew and English at the same time, and right away I was studying the Torah, so that definitely left an impression on me. I think right now, the way that I’ve re-appropriated that divine space or God, is really through the True Self. And the True Self is omnipresent, and is always there, and is ready for us when we’re ready for it.

What really struck me in The Natashas is the male rite of passage, which happens between Cesar and his brothers when they look at porn together. I wanted to inquire about your personal opinion on this. Do you see this as an early exposure to the objectification of female bodies, or an exciting beginning to the sexual adventure for men? What happens in that circumstance isn’t necessarily a reflection of what pornography is in society, it is more about the brutality that’s happening in the family. The porn is shown in that context. It’s a huge blanket statement to say that all porn is good or bad. What porn is and what porn can be is neither of those. I think either way, men and women and everyone in between need to have access and the liberty to sexual imagery. They need to be able to see themselves sexually represented outside of themselves. The only problem is when it becomes an industry and a business. Then it’s going to take on a patriarchal structure. But we have the need to see the human body in all its forms and in all its ages. Otherwise we develop this anxiety because we don’t know and it’s all taboo and we shouldn’t talk about it. Ideally, I think it would be great if we could have different levels of so-called porn, one specifically for teenagers for example, to show what sexual desire is, so they can get familiar with it. Otherwise they only get the commercial patriarchal opinion. We should just have more opinions about it. That shouldn’t be the only vision. What’s next? Is there going to be a sequel to The Natashas? No, no sequel to The Natashas. I am almost done with my second novel, Virtuoso. And part of takes part in Czech Republic. Look for it in the years to come! I really wanted to thank you so much for this talk! No, thank you! It was a pleasure. No, thank you! Thank you!

Photo of the author, Yelena Moskovich Credit: InĂ¨s Manai

Alice/Rob interview

Interview: Alice Gauthier and Rob Miles by Ellen ffrench

Ensconced in the bowels of Les Grands Voisins, a disused hospital recoloured and repurposed for social and cultural projects, the studio of independent artist-printmakers Alice Gauthier and Rob Miles is a nucleus of experimentation in drawing and lithography. Their latest exhibition ‘The World is so small it’s enormous’ showcased a selection of recent work alongside a special collaborative image produced for The Menteur magazine. The cover image for the Menteur magazine shows a composite figure, doubled and layered through printing to display the material processes and collaborative evolution of Rob and Alice’s work. R It’s relatively simple – it’s something that’s related to the prints we were working on anyway, of a figure with stuff inside and outside. A It’s also related to the body, because I’m working with body shapes and organic stuff, so we wanted to have a body. It was a drawing from a statue we have at home, from Africa. We loved it so we bought it and he stands there saluting. Then we drew it, with the hand, and we thought ah, a man looking into the distance. R The figure is also the figure of the student, the menteur, whoever the character is. The exhibition title ‘The World is so small it’s enormous’ speaks to the subject matter, process, and philosophy behind the works on show. It’s a paradox that reflects a guiding principle of how Rob and Alice work, the idea that a narrow focus in matter and medium invites greater clarity through which to express the whole world. A The idea is we can draw very small things and look at, for example, plankton -the more microscopic you get the wider and bigger the world is because you can see more things. R My link to that title as opposed to Alice’s microscopic and macroscopic link was more about focus, that the smaller you focus the more you can include. For me it was a stylistic thing, that by choosing a very particular subject matter, a crocodile, I found that I could write anything I wanted to. Or at least I could ask it questions that were maybe other questions I wanted to ask, but framed within the playfulness of it being a question of “What do you think crocodile? But you don’t think anything.” I find it’s the extreme focus of having a particular subject. A friend told me that it’s like a camera, the more specific you get the more you can include. If you try and talk about everything it’s too much. Metaphorically, it’s like the aperture of a camera: the smaller the aperture, the sharper everything comes into focus, because the light goes through the hole and gets into very sharp focus, whereas if you have a wide aperture you can focus on one thing but everything else is blurred in a softer focus. So I realised that the little glint in the eye of the crocodile was that tiny aperture through which everything came into focus.

Volcan, by Alice Gauthier lithograph 30 x 40 cm 2017

Alice’s work often zooms in on the unseen organisms of the natural world, teeming organic life which is hidden but beautiful and strange in form. A It’s not only plankton, it can be rocks, shells, minerals, things in nature, even organs; it’s a whole secret world that I can get inspired by drawing. When I was at the Royal College of Art I was trying to explain a feeling that you can have when you see a show or music, and you feel more excited or alive than at other times. I tried to work on this feeling by writing, but also in my drawings. So I started to look at interiority, and tried to find a project that I could relate to this idea, working on the feeling of being alive. I discovered lithography, and the overlapping of drawings was making sense for me in terms of making a drawing come alive. The more I was understanding the process, the more and more I was excited by this idea of organic-ness, and I started looking at microscopic cells and going to the rock museum in London to draw. R What I think is interesting is the link between plankton and say volcanoes, via lithography. Between cells that reproduce in patterns and shapes, and the earth moving and shaping in rock formation. There’s a clear link, to me, as someone who sees it all the time, of these organic processes, these things that happen with rocks and minerals, and life and movement. Because lithography is this control of chemicals and physics, it’s visually very linked in terms of the things that the ink does on the stone. A The plankton are from an encyclopaedia, a drawing of just one little drop of water with many many organisms inside - it’s so cool to think about, and imagine, and draw the things; I don’t try to copy them at all its just inspiration. I don’t draw the same way that I would if I wanted to draw an organism or an organ. It’s not about reproducing something you already know, it’s more trying to make something we kind of know but we are not sure, something we sense is an organic shape but can’t say what exactly. Rob’s images themselves vary between representational drawings and the symbolic. The illustrative images stand alongside and elucidate the more abstract, creating both a tension and relation between symbol and image. R Rather than just doing a style that’s symbols and abstracted shapes I wanted to see if I could make something that didn’t clash - I don’t know if it’s a success, but the idea was that you could have a set of images that feels like its from the same inspiration, but at some points becomes more realistic and at some points becomes more abstract. And I’m interested in both drawing “properly”, for want of a better word - drawing accurately and observationally, and doodling playfully. A It’s interesting to draw together images that seem different, almost from two different artists, but it’s possible to have them together and to unify them, to unify the world of drawings. Working together in a shared studio using the same press sustains a sphere of influence between the two artists even when not working on a collaborative piece. A The work we make is still separate, and our styles, but our influences and our working methods definitely overlap, and our sensibility of arts, we are sensitive to certain things for sure. R There are obviously certain things – Alice will do something in a print and I’ll think that’s so cool, I’m going to do that, but it’s not a competition in any way.

Dominating Rob and Alice’s studio space is an immense printing press, which plays both a physical and mental role in how the works are developed. Owning their own press allows Rob and Alice to direct both sides of the process, both creative and technical. Bridging the traditional separation between drawing and printing allows each side to inform the other. R Going back to the title ‘The world is so Small its enormous’, that as a phrase nicely encapsulates Alice’s images and also the process of focusing on one subject and writing and drawing about it. And it’s the same with lithography, saying I’m going to put everything through this one sort of slightly obscure and difficult process, and through that I can do everything I’m interested in. Lithography is a way of drawing that concentrates and adds an imposition on your drawings. I find that massive limitation really interesting: because there’s a size, time, and energy restriction. It slows you down. It’s slow and it’s difficult, that’s the philosophy somehow. A Because the printing process is so direct, you don’t lose anything. There is the drawing on the stone and the paper against it and that’s it, so it’s very natural. In the process, there’s different acts that are happening, different physical transformations. It’s very spontaneous. And also it’s a good way to re-question your work all the time; printmaking is another way to look at your images. It’s quite rare to meet artist-printmakers. In French the word “printmaker” doesn’t exist, un faiseur d’impression, un artiste; we have artists that make prints but there isn’t a word. “Printmaker” is great because you can say I am an artist-printmaker so people understand that I also make prints but if you say printer, people think I’m not an artist. It’s tricky. Rob and Alice moved from London to Paris in 2016 to open their joint studio, a city and language new to Rob and unfamiliar to Alice, having grown up in Paris but left to study. Befittingly, Paris offers a rich historical background and community of printmakers more diverse and widespread than that in London. A I’m from here but I left when I was 18, so now I’m 27 and I’m a different person, I’ve grown up a little bit so we thought it was good to come back for me and for Rob, to the city. We had a good feeling about Paris, as we were so interested in prints, and I had been learning the story of printmaking in lithography, which started mostly in Germany and Paris. R It’s linked to an amazing history, because any lithographer that’s of a certain age will have links probably to Picasso, just because it was all happening round here. Paris is a much more nostalgic city, it’s sort of soaked in its own romance and it loves its history. And I know a lot of artists say that’s not interesting because its not new and relevant, but considering we’ve made the decision to use this sort of machine, you can’t ignore that history either. We’re not trying to be nostalgic or deliberately vintage, or any of those things, its just the process that fascinates us, and obviously when you’re fascinated by something, you love talking to other people about it; and here we find more people interested in it than in London.

It was the displacement and unfamiliarity of place and language that facilitated Rob’s writing project The Crocodile Tales… R When I moved here I started going to the crocodile house in the Jardin de Plantes as a good way to start the day, it gave me a routine. I think the reason I wanted to go there and write was because I wasn’t writing naturally, probably because I wasn’t having the conversations I would have had with my friends which spark ideas and words. That wasn’t happening because you find your words are limited, so writing to the crocodile I suppose was a release of all of that, trying to be as eloquent as I could. The Menteur’s theme of distance resonates with the ideas behind the selection of work presented in ‘The world is so small it’s enormous’. This title speaks to the focus of the lithographic process and minute forms of Alice’s work, yet also feels significant in the context of contemporary discussions about borders, openness, isolationism, and prejudice. A Distance spoke to me when I started to draw internal shapes and things we don’t really know or can’t really see. I saw images that I’d never seen before, even videos of the internal body. It was amazing and it could be another planet really. It was silvery, and blue. There is this distance in yourself: between yourself, your body and also the world you’re in. You can’t see everything because of the physicality of your eyes. And there’s the small, and the very big, and the scientific aspect of what’s happening in earth; there is a huge distance between you and the world. So I thought, that’s what I’m trying to draw. ‘The world is so small its enormous’ is also about curiosity, if you’re not curious you’re closed minded, politically. You have to be open to other things. And that can mean travelling, or staying here and being curious about what you see and learning, and being excited and involved. The world is so small, but you can stay in this room and think it’s enormous because you have a project. R It’s like Georges Perec, where he writes about all the million lives that happen and overlap in multiplicity. A It’s overwhelming sometimes, because we tend to say we should do this and this, we are curious about things but at the same time its good to stay here and focus. R And we’ve spent all our energy and money on this heavy machine so this is what we’re going to do.

STUDY IN PARIS, IN ENGLISH at the University of Kent in Paris as all modules are taught in English. French lessons are provided by the University, both in Canterbury and in Paris. Living in the city itself helps students gain valuable language skills and experience. HISTORIC SURROUNDINGS The University of Kent in Paris is based at Reid Hall a beautiful 19th-century building in the heart of Montparnasse, just minutes by foot from the Sorbonne, Jardin du Luxembourg and Saint-Germainde-Pres. With trips to major landmarks, museums and galleries most weeks, students can easily experience the very best that Paris has to offer. TOP FOR RESEARCH Consistently praised as one of the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top universities for its research intensiveness, Kent Running a variety of postgraduate courses in Paris, Brussels, Athens and Rome, Kent affords its students access to Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural epicentres, whilst maintaining links to its world-class research departments in Canterbury.

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