Florence Lazar | The Centre Pompidou New Media Collection
Curators: Christine Van Assche, Ghila Limon
Nov. 27, 2010 - Jan. 22, 2011
La Prière, 2008, video, colour, 20:00
It is a Friday afternoon in Paris, at the intersection of rue Myrrha and rue Leon in the city’s 18th arrondissement . As the neighboring Al Fath and Khaled Ibn Walid mosques fill up to maximum capacity with Muslim followers who have come to pray, those remaining outside spread their prayer carpets in the middle of the street. The local policemen, who are aware of the lack of space inside the mosques, allow the believers to pray in the streets even though they are blocking the traffic.
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Lazar’s documentary addresses the changing demography of Paris and of Europe at large. It also calls our attention to the needs of the Muslim community, which lacks the sufficient space necessary to accommodate all of its members – thus compelling them to perform a sacred ritual in a public space. At the same time, it examines how the French Republic, which legally instituted the separation of church and state in 1905, has to adapt itself to a new demographic reality, which might undermine this separation.
G. L.
Florence Lazar- born in France, 1966
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