Brussels (AFP)

Creator of the fantastic series "Les Cités obscures" with his accomplice Benoît Peeters, the Belgian François Schuiten escaped to the planet Mars thanks to drawing during the coronavirus pandemic.

During this period, which created "distrust and the irrational", he regretted that culture had not "taken to the streets".

The 64-year-old designer, who announced in 2019 that he would stop comics for fear of making too many albums, is overflowing with projects.

Q: How did you experience this period of confinement?

"I have the chance to make a profession which is naturally confined, we immerse ourselves in drawing, in imaginations, our stories, our passions. Drawing is magic, we need nothing, a sheet of paper, pencil ... It is an extraordinary privilege. When I am in bad shape, I draw and it gets better, it is my way of treating myself. "

"I have never drawn so much with such great concentration. Even during Skype meetings, I continued, the camera does not show my hand. When I was a child in class, I hid my hand from view of the professor to draw ".

Q: What will you take away from it?

"What interested me the most was how we create a feeling of fear around the world. Fear creates distrust, the irrational. We had attitudes beyond all logic (…) We saw terrorized people, it's very disturbing, it gives a feeling of great sadness because seeing smiles, being able to touch people, that's what is beautiful. Suddenly we were deprived of these emotions, it's a terrible frustration. "

"The word + war + (used by Emmanuel Macron) is a colossal error, I did not like the infantilization ... It is a situation that could resemble war but only in hospitals and places where For most people, it's a stop, a withdrawal, an extremely difficult situation. This word dramatizes excessively. I don't like being taken for a fool, I'm always sensitive to people who try to help me understand, and not to guide me like a little boy who made a mistake. "

Q: How do you see the world from next?

"The post-virus city is what we should have done (during confinement), put the culture in the street, in the middle. Rather than people banging on pots and pans, they have a quarter of an hour with an actor who would have read some poems on the microphone ... Or project images on facades, we could do everything. "

"It was disturbing all the potential that it opened when there were no more cars ... We saw all the emotions that the city could give us while it is rigidified in its functional roles, travel to feed, for work "

"It annoyed me that artists do not invade the streets, do not create shows outside, all balconies can become theater balconies".

"Why have we not all decided, I also want to, to invent a culture of containment in the heart of the city?"

Q: What projects during and after the crisis?

"A travel diary from the Vuitton collection on ... Mars. For the first time, it will be in a city that does not exist. I travel to Mars, it is very mineral, I am surrounded by books on Mars. It is a very rigorous immersion in light, climate ... There will be 120 color drawings, I made 40 ".

"A futuristic series + Compulsions + for an American producer, starting first with my images, which makes me participate in the story. It will be a book of illustrations then a series".

"+ Muse +, a show with a dancer and a musician around drawing in the making. I will do live drawing".

"I have just won a competition with an architect for + scenography + the CNIT of La Défense, this huge concrete veil, which will host a new station in Grand Paris. Thousands of m2 to which an identity must be given". (Schuiten and Peeters designed the Paris metro station Arts et Métiers in 1994, like an underground Nautilus, note)

fmi-mad / sg

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