Marine firefighters on the rubble heap of collapsed buildings in Marseille.

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Marseilles Fire Brigade Battalion

Every Marseillais surely still has in mind these same overwhelming images which seemed impossible to see in the city center of the second largest city in France, but which made the rounds of television channels on November 5, 2018. Piles of rubble, which cover the furniture of apartments gone up in smoke.

Firefighters who cleared day and night, and this gaping hole, this freezing hollow tooth of the rue d'Aubagne, where eight people died in the collapse of several buildings. 

Almost two years later, as part of the contemporary art biennial Manifesta, documentary filmmaker Annika Erichsen and sound director Mehdi Ahoudig are offering a somewhat special exhibition devoted to this traumatic event in Marseille history.

And for good reason: this installation is based solely on sound.

At Coco Velten, visitors find themselves immersed in this past, through two voices.

First, there is the story of Sophie, one of the tenants at 65 rue d'Aubagne, who tells about her daily life as a living in a building that no longer exists today.

This story merges with another, that of the fire brigade commander who led the rescue and clearing operations.

"The sound has a force"

“When there is a drama in the news, we are obviously overwhelmed by the images, explains Annika Erichsen.

It affects us at first.

But when it gets too much, it slips.

On the contrary, sound has a force.

It can disturb us, and by listening to it repeatedly, it always disturbs us.

The sound creates emotion, interior images, and it comes under our skin.

"

After having participated, as a neighbor of the district of Noailles, in the various marches of anger which followed the tragedy of the rue d'Aubagne, Annika Erichsen wanted to make her contribution to a necessary "work of memory", according to her.

“What I want is above all that we don't forget.

Sophie at one point tells her husband not to worry, and that the building is not going to collapse.

No one could have imagined that this would happen one day in Marseille.

So, on these problems of poor housing, we must not close our eyes.

»And open his ears wide, so ...

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