For Danielle, Hazel, Katy, Antoine, Thomas Walter and the others. One esquisse of protogenesis

Two diagrams

in response to an invitation to contribute to The Lost Diagrams of Walter Benjamin (Ma bibliothéque, 2017)

scanned drawing and digital collage
Inkjet print on Hahnemuller 300 grs, size A3

I chose to follow  Benjamins’s process of drawing a diagram of  his life, in one single attempt.

Sitting at a table I scribbled in my sketchbook the messy web of connections that I could retrace back to my childhood at this particular moment in time, instinctively finding a way to articulate on the page a senses of chronology and a way to separate the dead from the living. It took no more than 15 mins to do so.

Names were popping out as if to their own accord, I was well aware that another day, or other circumstances would probably conjure up a slightly different set of acquaintances. An image of a younger self confidently aims her bow and arrow at this roadmap of her life not yet lived.