Contes Immoraux - Partie 1: Maison Mère

So that the Allied partners fighting against the Axis powers could engage their troops on European soil, they employed the defence strategy of carpet bombing. This strategy, used on both sides, turned out to be an unprecedented human tragedy for all Western Europe. Entire cities were wiped out, burying their inhabitants beneath the rubble. My maternal grandfather was one of these victims when Nantes was carpet bombed by the Allies in 1943. During my childhood, the image and consequences of bombs did not seem real to me; bombs were just the stuff of fantasy, as they were for many children. It was much later in my life, when I realized, we were not going to lay flowers at the grave of my grandfather but were instead going to visit a faceless mass grave, that I understood the terrible infamy of bombs. Maybe it was at that moment my mind stumbled across the words “Marshall Plan”, the programme set up to rebuild Europe: organise mass destruction and then manage the reconstruction of war-devastated cities, following the model of a re-fabricated house and a rewritten urban development plan.

Build a “Marshall” village out of made-to-measure cardboard, the same way we put up a series of tents for refugees. Just here, beneath a seemingly unthreatening cloud.

A simple, repetitive gesture, like a robot. Spread out, trace, cut, assemble, put in place, then start all over again. Everything seems perfect, except for that cloud, which looks like it’s getting bigger, thicker and darker. Maybe a bolt of lightning, a gentle breeze, then eventually a series of heavy raindrops, a shower, maybe even a rainstorm with torrents of water! The Marshall village collapses, despite the energy used up trying to save it. It turns into mush, a sticky mess in which bodies drown… — Phia Ménard