Jul 08, 2016, @09:32 CET

Dear Ivan,

I shudder hearing about your experience. Eli Wiesel passed away only a few days ago in NYC, a man who taught us that there are moments we can not and should not remain silent. In times like this, one wishes to control space and time to give the gift of experience to the provocateurs, hoping they would then at least fully understand and contextualise their actual provocation and reduction. A deliberate choice to choose a too narrow context. I doubt many would still hold a same opinion after actually experiencing what they are judging.

Too many still turn away. Kitty Genovese. I Imagine I was there, and I honestly do not know what I would have done. Of course reason tells me I would always intervene, but at the same time we also know that all the witnesses in 1964 honestly felt the same. Yet they did not intervene. Kitty died with eyes watching her. I would find the weight on my shoulders impossible to bear.

Arles is magical by the way. I don’t know why, and I know my view is flawed by necessity, only being here a few days every year, my vision way too narrow to be representative in any way. But somehow every time a weight – whichever weight it is at the time – falls off my shoulders. Right away upon arrival. Bam. I’m sitting here in la Roquette and wonder if it’s the sunshine, the architecture, the people, the Rhône. Then I realise what I should have known all along: Mistral. The wind that shapes it all. Blessing and curse. Clearer of minds.

Maybe it’s the ritual of driving from home to here, exactly 1075km, a number – as you already know – with a deep meaning to me. The wind picks up the curtains and i see the world outside. France won the soccer game, and la Roquette celebrated all night long as only la Roquette can do.

 

/// #image_by_image is an ongoing conversation between photographers Ivan Sigal and Anton Kusters. @ivansigal @antonkusters on Instagram ///