La ruine du regard / Die Ruine des Blickes - Anu Pennanen

Paris, Helsinki, Berlin 2010

A shopping centre awakes, is being cleaned, homeless are being driven out, boule players are gathering on a square, the photograph of a excavation hole in the 1970s, construction plans, a still preserved market hall, escalators rattle, people are walking through tunnels, moved by conveyor belts:, this place seems to be designed for movement, not for dwelling. Nevertheless, a dialogue develops between a customer and a salesgirl, a woman waits in vain and is stood up, at last a protagonist returns home to his family and the shopping centre awakens once again. The forum Les Halles in Paris is the setting of the last episode of “The Shopping Centre Trilogy” in which Anu Pennanen focuses on different shopping centres across Europe. This building in Paris exemplifies a process of urban development and politics, which is still highly controversial and has been protested repeatedly. As early as the 12th century, shops were run in this area. In the 19th century, market halls of glass and steel stood at this very location. They were torn down in 1971, despite the protest of Parisian citizens. For years, the construction site was merely a sore spot in the cityscape due to the gigantic trench. The forum Les Halles was opened in 1979 and is still the one of the biggest shopping centres in Paris. The connected train stations of the Metro and RER trains take the citizens of the suburbs to town. Approximately 800.000 commuters pass the station each day. In the meanwhile, the forum has been rebuilt but the film shoot for Pennanen’s work took place before. Most of the locals share a negative attitude towards the forum Les Halles, which may be one of the reasons why in travel guides it is described as “boring”. Besides this touristic point of view, one might find other perceptions of the place, which Anu Pennanen observes carefully, uncovers in interviews and reenacts with the help of film students: former workers of the market halls, teenagers and youths that use the location to “chill” or to date. These protagonists are introduced to us by a female speaker, who declaims their names, memories and functions. The videos are projected onto five differently formed cubic objects, which create images of various angles and sizes and thus mirror the spatial and social structures in various dimensions. Each projection has a separate soundtrack, which makes it possible to experience the complexity of the scene on its acoustic and spatial scale. So what are the dispositions of a metropolitan interchange? How does the architecture of one of the largest traffic junctions shape communication or meetings, facilitate or prohibit paths, allow or distract observations, bring people together or, to the contrary, alienate them? To what extent does a social fabric develop, which was laid out quite differently in the original plans? “La ruine du regard“ traces the actions and contraventions that are influenced by architectural surroundings. Thereby, the work uncovers that a social structure, such as today's complex society with all its issues (e.g. immigration), cannot be changed by a material form such as architecture, but architecture can be transformed to a place that allows various scopes of action.

(Gila Kolb)