Paris Fantômes (2002)

What do stones tell us when we look at them? I look, I see, I listen; Rue de Navarin, at the corner of Rue du Rocher and Rue de Rome, Rue Marie-Rose; from one side to the other, the echoes of my familiar ghosts and others. Like the pebbles of Tom Thumb, I follow the road of square stones; on the facades of the Paris buildings, the commemorative plaques attract me, pull me towards the country, the town of former times, they speak to me of succeeding ages. There are 2,000 plaques in Paris. First of all plaques were put up for great men, great politicians, great writers, great poets, great musicians, great soldiers: the Republic was making for itself a genealogy that was worthy of it. Here lived, here died, here lived, here died. Then it was great heroes, little heroes and anonymous heroes of wartime: they did not live, above all they died. I set off in search of these stories, in a ghostly Paris where, from plaque to plaque, the fragile, barely visible traces of forgotten lives unfold.