M HKA Ensembles

Book, 12 x 18.5 cm, 123 p, language:French, publisher: Paris: P.O.L. éditeur, ISBN: 978-2818014851.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/217).

Literary synopsis This book is about the ghosts that haunt our memories. The text is an incomplete inventory of stories that recur with both familiarity and a certain regularity about the disappearance of people Valérie Mréjen either knew or heard say of from others. There is also a stroll through the streets of her neighbourhood with a woman’s spirit, but they are unable to catch up on things because too much time has gone by and the gap between them is too deep. Valérie Mréjen wrote this text in reference to the beginnings of the series *Six Feet Under* (that she quotes once) and also to a sentence in Mirelle Havet’s journal of 1918: “… and I am as full of the dead as a crypt, full of memories and dreams…” *Forêt Noire* (Black Forest) is in keeping with Valérie Mréjen’s precedent books, with a tendency to come closer to the novel. Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice The book opens and ends with the suicide of an artist and friend, Edouard Levé, who played in some of the films and videos (*La Défaite du rouge-gorge*, *Il a fait beau*, *Blue Bar*). [Novel website](http://valeriemrejen.com/folio/?portfolio=foret-noire)