The World Within - PBF05 / Gérome Barry
21 January - 27 March 2021
While locked down in Paris during the coronavirus crisis, Gérome came up with the idea of creating imaginary worlds to help him escape from the sad reality around him.
“In this period of confinement, making small films was an escape route for me. I was confined in my small Parisian flat, and I began to use the smallest amount of space available, the slightest a priori insignificant object, to transcend them... My aim was to show what imagination could bring to everyone. Above all, I wanted to do this with humour (the ‘politesse du désespoir’, as Boris Vian said). I posted my first video (from my kitchen) on the Internet as a gag, without thinking. One of my cousins is a nurse; she was on the front lines of the health crisis. She saw this video and wrote to me that a burst of laughter had made her spit out her tea! If she was able to forget her everyday life for even a few seconds, then perhaps my little gesture was not totally useless? It made me want to go on. (…) When I was younger, I devoured all the films by Jacques Tati and Pierre Étaix. I have to believe that, over time, this humour infused somewhere, almost in spite of myself.”
