Claire Cocano – Rue Desire Chevalier

Review by Douglas Stockdale •

How well do we know our extended family? How would we connect with our family’s history? What was important to them; their hopes and dreams? What can we truly understand about them if they are no longer able to provide the answers to our many questions? If even a little bit? These, and similar questions arise and have been addressed by artist, poets and writers for decades, thus Claire Cocano’s investigative Rue Desire Chevalier is yet another chapter in this process of discovery and person introspection. Likewise, her artist book and visual investigation might provide a potential roadmap for us, the reader to follow and relate, as it did for me.

After the passing of her grandparent, Cocano returned to their Paris flat located on Rue Desire Chavalier to revisit the place in which she had spent time as a child. These subsequent visits provided a poignant focus for her memories. This has resulted in a body of work which might be described as part documentary and part archeological research. Some of what is included appears humorous, such as the family event of her grandfather dancing, while others seem more poignant. Her Yugoslavia grandparent’s traditions and spoken word to Cocano as a second-generation Parisian, perhaps even with frequent family visits, must have seemed both exotic and mysterious. Now she was seeking clues to the many hidden meaning as to who they were, about their relocation to Paris, their longing to return to Yugoslavia, which had changed much since their departure, and their returning visits to a place that was no longer home. Her camera became a tool with which to explore the workings of her mind rather than merely to reflect the look of their world as she found it.

Her artist book appears to progress chronologically, using her grandparents photographic archive to help reconstruct their lives, while layering in her own photographs to establish additional context. Cocano documents her family’s quarters, provides portraits of individuals who may be family as well as her visits to what was Yugoslavia to try to further investigate her family connections. She reminds us that when searching for clues and meanings, we may need to venture to the far reaches in an attempt to try to gain further understanding.

We are taken on a mysterious quest by Cocano who slowly reveals tantalizing visual clues, which keeps us guessing as we page throughout this artist book. We are unmoored by her chain of thoughts, perhaps also representing her thoughts and feelings as she probed deeper into her grandparent’s archive and about the many things that remain unknown. There appears to be odd image pairing coupled with a cadence and sequence of images that can keep the reader off-balance, destabilized, essentially in an attempt to represent Cocano’s own emotional imbalance when confronting her grandparent’s apartment and their photographic archive.

We confront found documents, such as the magazine covers that hint of a Yugoslavia origin, which have been subsequently written on with text and numbers that beg for some kind of meaning. We can guess that these magazines were to help her grandparents understanding of events occurring in their home-land, while the additional writing implies some secret messages or code. These documents might have revealed their secret to Cocano, while they can further confound and confuse us, the reader.

Interceded through this book are more mysterious clues; sewn in folded pages, one side a complex maze of lines and encircled numbers, perhaps a metaphoric road map, while on the reverse and inside the folds is printed a gray pattern of cross-stitching with some very small details in color. The cross-stitching might be something an individual would perform to pass the time or as a creative endeavor, yet another tantalizing detail about her grandparents. It made me think of the wooden lamp stands we have that were crafted by my grandfather who had a mysterious darken basement where all of his exotic wood turning equipment stood.

There is no introduction or afterward included in this book to help the reader, while if one investigates this book long enough, they may find a Rossetta Stone that can help provide some insight. On the surface, I found her visual dialog challenging to follow and understand and I can only think that is exactly what Cocano encountered as she continued her investigation. The colors of the flag of Yugoslavia, like that of France, is a tricolor of blue, white and red, are the colors of the treads that Cocano has chosen to hand-bind her artist book, yet another subtle symbolization for the fragile elements that hold and tie her memories together.

This book has been wonderful memory-trigger for me, recalling my own families’ photographic archives and being surprised to find little stories, such as an aspect of my grandfather I was not aware of; he had a love of fishing. Something that was not discussed when I was a young child visiting my grandparents who were a six-hour car drive away that resulted in infrequent family visits.

Thus, her book remains an enigma, while it becomes part of her engagement with the profound issues of love and loss, life and death. She demonstrates the possibility of exposing universal truths through the most personal events. It is a body of work to which readers will be able to relate through the filter of their own experiences.

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Douglas Stockdale is the Senior Editor and founder, PhotoBook Journal

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Rue Desire Chevalier, Claire Cocano

Artist; Claire Cocano, born and resides, Paris, France

Text: English, French, Yugoslavia

Hard cover, hand-bound by the artist, edition of 65 copies.

Photobook Designer: Claire Cocano

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