«Always wander, never settle down»

This is the Mongolian motto. However since 2000, Mongolia has been going through it’s biggest rural exodus. 15% of its popula- tion migrated toward the capital, Ulan-Bator.

While in 1980, 80% of the Mongolian population was still carrying on with their way of life, now, only one third still aplly this principal; whether it's because of industrial or urban developement, or their abrupt insertion into the market. Central Asia is getting to know the loss of a two thousand five hundred years old lifestyle.

My artistic work is linked to "distant places", whichever they might be, to movement, and storytelling. I like the idea that a story can be an evasion and a lesson at once. My project in Mongolia is called «Telling stories from the steppes». What I wish above all, is to preserve which is endangered, to keep alive these stories and anecdotes linked to a particular lifestyle. I wouldn’t go to Mongolia to show what I would see, but to retransmit what I would be told.

My internet researches enabled me to get in touch with a horse ridding agency located in Harhorin.

http://www.horsetrails.mn/fr/horsetrails.php

Together we decided on a three weeks schedule accompanied by a map. Each point marks the number of days spend in a yurt. There are 7 families to visit, 21 days of journey in total, for september 2015.

During my stay, I would like to collect stories and anecdotes linked to photographies found in yurt. In the book «The Invention of the Deads, Graves, ghosts and photography in contemporary Mongolia» Gregory Delaplace describes the importance of photography in Mongolian culture. In fact, there is in each yurt a display window showing pictures of the family, relatives, horses. He explains how these images are vectors of social relations, through exchange, borrowing, stealing... He also describes the use of photoshop in the editing of funeral portraits in order to show them in their best possible light. This book enabled me to determine a starting point to my work, wich would focus on these images, filled with stories and memories.

I would need an assistant to accomplish this project, I would like to use sound recording, video, photography and writing. An interpreter will also be by my sides all the time to translate directly the stories I would like to collect.

In february 2016, I will have a personnal exhibition in the FRAC Franche Comté, in Besançon. This project would be shown there.

542204_315978435213182_525270946_n-1434106365

What would be done

A book will gather all the stories I would be told, with photos. I'm also planning to realize a short film.

In february 2016, I will have a personnal exhibition in the FRAC Franche Comté, in Besançon. This project would be shown there.

The journey

The journey lasts 21 days, I would spend 3 nights in each family , 2 nights in the last family. First I would go to the Hangai moun- tains , with a passage in the hot water sources between the 3rd and the 4th family, then I would go down to the valley of Orkhon that I would follow to get back to Harhorin .

Carte-21-jours-morgane-1433690639

telling stories from the steppes