Yasmina Benari

Installation

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There is no Eve And if there is no Eve Lilith was never expelled from the Garden of Eden She did not fight with Adam for control The two of them knew It stronger, together He agreed to lie beneath her, she was never turned into a snake She had done nothing wrong, he loved her unchanged There was no original sin, no tree or fruit Two entwined bodies, they loved it so. Then there were the descendants, Who did not carry the burden of sin Who proudly honoured Lilith for thousands of years Who did never forgot until... The voice stops suddenly. I can hear her drinking. I cannot make out her features in the dim light of this carmine box. The sound of her voice is soft, enveloping, sometimes rough as if welling up from the depths of her memory. She resumes. But equality cannot last. Jealousy overcame them Tyranny asserted itself in the segregation of sexes Instituring total supremacy of the reign of warriors and their king Women separated at birth Mamas, elwas The mother, the whore; we always come back to that But history does not stop there; there it starts. Revolt, exile, reconstruction elsewhere Areina, then Lily and Eva With a freedom that only courage brings Wanting it all then sacrificing it all to the discovery of what really matters They are the trace of an alternative to the inevitable.

Yasmina Benari

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Remerciements

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Je remercie Le Fresnoy pour ces deux années de travail et de découvertes. Pour leur collaboration et leur regard sur le projet, merci à Romain Renault, David de Beyter, Clémence Labadie et Sébastien Cabour. Pour leur soutien et leur aide, un grand merci à Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Ludivine Sibelle, Constantin Dubois, Elisabeth Caravella, Bertrand Lamarche, Julien Michalewiez, Richard Campagne et Fabienne Guilbert. Merci à ma famille pour son soutien inconditionnel.