Noémie Goudal

Noémie Goudal has long been drawn to the meeting point of nature and culture, or as she puts it, the organic as “invaded” by the man-made. Goudal also feels a strong attraction to the theatre, and combines the two leanings in the series Les Amants (the Lovers), in which Cascade and Promenade play a part. However, the two works address the issues in different ways: the one is a photograph of a theatrical installation, its school-play hokeyness meant to underline its absurdity; the other is a staging where a photograph plays the main role. On both stages, real nature is relegated to best-supporting actress.

A cascading waterfall and a burbling brook in a forest glen... No matter how many times we’ve seen them in bad paintings, they still hold a deep attraction for all but the most hardened urbanite. And yet water has had to give way to plastic, a word which has become synonymous with ’cheap’ and ’false’. Back in another century, a seer by the name of Warhol forced us to admit that our environment didn’t have much of anything natural left in it and that it was time to set aside the old idols and install new ones. Let’s face it: we can’t live without plastic. It courses through our lives. If anything, that modest waterfall is set to become a raging torrent.
Nor is there more hope for an accommodation with nature in Promenade. The route ahead offers a way forward, but does not exactly inspire confidence. We’ve loved the land to death, Goudal suggests, or as the song goes, ’we always hurt the one we love.’

Text by William A Ewing