ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION
Finis terrae is a non profit association created in February 2008 by Marcel Dinahet and Celia Cretien. Its purposes are to develop contemporary art projects on the island of Ouessant (Brittany – France) and to encourage the diffusion of national and international creation in unusual spaces. The association focuses on video and film artists working on sea, insularity and landscape-related themes. Its name refers to the film Finis terræ by Jean Epstein who, from the 1920's, drew inspiration from Brittany's islands, in particular Ouessant, to shoot his landmark avant-garde films.
« GOING TO OUESSANT - VIDEO ON THE ISLAND »
« Going to Ouessant - Video on the Island » is the first major project organised by the association on the island of Ouessant. Marcel Dinahet wanted to invite us on his favourite terrain: the littoral, this frontier that he explores with a video camera. As a teacher at The School of Fine Arts in Rennes, he regularly brought a group of students on the island of Ouessant : a motion from central Brittany to its periphery, at the outermost bounds of Western Europe, an immersion in a land with a very marked identity. The association Finis terrae wanted to continue this experience by devoting an event (11th and 12th October 2008) to video art on the island of Ouessant.
Click here to see the programme of the event
ARTISTS' RESIDENCIES
In the same way, the association Finis terrae organises a programme of two residencies per year, selecting two French or foreign artists to spend a month in the Créac'h semaphore. The beautiful, quiet and wild island of Ouessant is an ideal setting for the artists who want to develop a line of thought or an artistic project related to such a particular and inspiring local context.
Marcel Dinahet inaugurated this programme of artists' residencies in Ouessant by creating two videos on the island in October 2008. In Portraits, eighty years after Jean Epstein, the artist decided to find and to film the descendants of Finis terræ's actors. The second video, devoted to the cliffs of Ouessant, has been shown in La Criée, Contemporary Art Center of Rennes, from April 14 to 26, 2009. Nicolas Floc'h has also been chosen to participate in the residency programme. He will settle at the Créac'h semaphore from 12th October to 15th November 2009.
Afterwards, the association wants to develop exchanges with similar artist residency programmes from abroad.