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Carp is a traditional dish in the Czech Republic. It is mainly eaten on Christmas Eve, during family gatherings. A time where, occasionally, tongues untie, like in Festen, the 1998 film by Thomas Vintenberg. This becomes a paradox when hearing the French or Czech expression: “muet comme une carpe.” Mute like a carp to say: “you never open your mouth.”
In my own family, where we never ate carp, nor at Christmas, nor at occasion, we never talked. An implied silence, accepted by the community and imposed upon children, thus transmitted from generation to generation out of respect for the previous ones. I ask myself still, at the age of 42, who was my true paternal grand father to whom we claim so many anecdotes and doubtful allusions; whose father died while wanting to elegantly jump onto a tram to impress passers-by; and whose grand father drowned after getting himself caught in his own net while fishing on the Garone in Toulouse.
The omnipresence of this type of silence accompanies me through my life. Naturally and with great ease I reproduce it; even amplify it with my own secrets, fictitious or genuine, because those of others were inaccessible.
Stephanie and I have created a series of drawings, photos and montages in the way of musical improvisations. Translating our general vision of the impact and traces left by these silences; traces whose ultimate consequence is death.
Thus, when we bought the seven living carps in a Brno fishery, the original idea was to hang them alive in a set built to this effect two weeks prior; and film them agonizing in their silence until death. “It will take about two hours” warned the sales associate. We prepared ourselves to create a feature film.
At the sight of the living carps, precisely an hour before the action Stéphanie did not feel the necessary courage to collaborate.
The first carp I took in my hands weighed 3 kilos. Slippery and much too heavy for the hooks we had prepared. Driven with extreme energy, and animated by violent tail movements the one who should have sat at the top of the family structure brutally fell to the floor, groggy, but living. Completely unexpected this incident seemed to me as a sign of resilience, an expression of a fierce desire to get out alive, to survive above and beyond the given situation. The installation had to change.
The following events were improvised in urgency. Kill the fish by knocking them out like had indicated the custodian of the studio, a retired military officer of the Czech army. Take photos of the carps on the floor then quickly put them to chill.
Later in the evening, wanting to take the work further, I decided to attempt a new hanging with the dead fish. New preparations, new surprise: one of the carps was missing from the plastic bag in the refrigerator. The photo shoot takes place with only six individuals, one of the grand parents having mysteriously vanished.
It was a surprising disappearance, a fortuitous absence that I take as a stroke of luck and interpret as a direct illustration of my own family secret.
The following day the custodian thanks us for the carp he ate the previous day.
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