The Image of Happiness
The Image of happiness is an ongoing video project.
It has its roots in the photo serie 'Trampolines', and the 'Flying Carpet' project.
It also refers to Chris Markers film 'Sans Soleil' where the very first frame is an image of three children. The voiceover says : 'The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965. He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images, but it never worked. He wrote me: one day I'll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black.'
Chris Marker continues to pursue other images that might likewise represent happiness but fails.
In my attempt to seek for lightness and avoid the heaviness of reality I'm focussing on the physical movement of the leap, in a landscape that is rough, cold and windy. The children being so very light while jumping, the act of the leap as light as a feather.