Etienne de France

Beyond the Angles of the Field is composed of 2040, a video co-directed with Mamadou Balde and Eugene Cole, and a book.

2040 follows two companions who wake up in the future and walk across a changed world. From these landscapes and their dreams emerge tales of planets and parables, that resist the stereotyped dreams inoculated by the dominant powers. As they walk between forests, sands, rivers and engravings from another age, encounters occur and new paths unfold.

Echoing the video, Beyond the Angles of the Field‘s book brings together a body of research carried out in the Essonne region (south of Paris), weaving together landscapes, archaeology and agriculture.
In it, scripts and narratives in Pular, Krio and French are interwoven, as the collective learning of oak flour-making, prehistoric engravings put into perspective by archaeologist Boris Valentin, and the research-action around copyright and co-authorship contracts developed in dialogue with the group Bureau des dépositions.

2040, 28 mn, 2021

Film stills:

Beyond the Angles of the Field (book)

Photos credits : © Thérèse Verrat & Vincent Toussaint

The book Beyond the Angles of the Field was co-edited with curator and writer Elena Lespes Muñoz.
Texts by Mamadou Balde, Bureau des dépositions, Eugene Cole, Etienne de France, and Elena Lespes Muñoz, Boris Valentin.
Graphic design : Studio T&D
100 ex.
The project Beyond the Angles of the Field was produced in the context of a residency in 2020
and 2021 at Contemporary Art Center Brétigny, in collaboration with EMMAÜS Solidarité-Centre d’Hébergement d’Urgence Bois L’Abbé, in Épinay-sur- Orge (France).
Link to the residency project: https://www.cacbretigny.com/en/residencies/416-beyond-the-angles-of-the-field

Workshops: from acorns harvest to acorn flour