Re-dit-en-un-in-a-learning

Language – in the broadest sense of the word – is omnipresent in Prouvost’s oeuvre. Her work deals with miscommunication and those ideas which are lost in translation. She records her English voice-overs in a French accent, show misspelled words on the screen and severs the typical associations between words, images and meanings. Existing memories are intertwined with fabrications, so that even the line between fact and fiction becomes ambiguous. 

The video Re-dit-en-un-in-a-learning (2020) picks up where DIT LEARN (2017) left off, with the artist assuming the role of a teacher who instructs the viewer on which words are correct and incorrect. With the ‘DIT’ in the title, she refers to the French verb dire (‘to say’), while the prefix de- in English has the same sound and means ‘off or from’, i.e., to undo or counteract. To ‘de-learn’ would therefore be to unlearn. In both videos, she uses objects as a stand-in for words and emotions. A snail means ‘slow down’, for example, a mandarin orange means ‘love’ and a cracked egg conveys that ‘you are late’. ‘You know that,’ the voice says, as if it is only a matter of refreshing your memory.

This video was created during the COVID pandemic, a period in which many people became alienated from themselves and the world around them. Prouvost wants to repair those relationships. She wants to re-establish our connection to what we feel has been lost. In this attempt, she turns not to reason but to the physical sensations evoked by close-up images of liquid honey, slimy snail trails and bare feet on gravel.