A little later, in a Parisian book box, a small book. I know the title well, the author too, and yet I have never read it. But now it’s calling out to me. The format is unusual, I like the yellowed paper of a book that has lived and travelled. I leaf through it slowly while the smell of vanilla wafts from the pages I turn. On the back, a short summary that starts like this. Because I now have grandchildren, I often feel like telling stories: it is the natural function of grandfathers, and perhaps their greatest merit. I crack a smile. I’ve always loved to listen to my grandfather, this wise old man that tells stories of all kinds. And I realised that I wanted to tell a story too. So inspired by this little book by Pagnol, and preferring to see design as a tool, for stimulating the imagination, I’ve created this small object mixing personal recollections, historical and fictional stories along with a collection of archives found in various books on lighthouses. Exploring how layout can serve the construction of a story made of heterogenous elements, I told myself a story. It is up to you to find the links you wish to see in it, to tell your own story.
« It’s a bit cliché but sharing: that’s what it’s all about » said this sweet woman in the electric blue jumper and astronaut trousers.
During my research I had collected a lot of documents of all kinds, which had nourished me, touched me… which I wanted to share. And among all these, there was this little phrase.
“At the origin of writing, I said to myself one morning in front of my blank page, there is a voice that speaks to others. Thus the letter was the UR-genre, and all literature proceeded from correspondence – to which, after all, it ends in the act of reading. Every text was a letter insofar as it implied a destination.”
Nicole, E. (2007) Alaska. Paris : Editions de l’Olivier.
So I simply decided to address them to you as a letter. To link them together in this large envelope where all of them, although each one has its own form resulting from the content and the way I wanted to give them to you to read (through the font size, the text direction in a sort of playful way), would become a piece of the puzzle.
Now it’s their turn to tell you a story.