My crossingChapter II / V1976–1984

The square and the screen

What crosses from one world to another : the image

Paris, 18th arrondissement. A square, a corner building, a television left on, a language school growing. Then two losses, and a birth.

Square de Clignancourt

The family lived at 19 square de Clignancourt, on the third floor. The public garden below, opened in 1914, had its bandstand and a tall Chinese cedar planted in 1910; children played there until mealtime. A little further on stood the place Jules-Joffrin, the town hall of the 18th and the church of Notre-Dame-de-Clignancourt. The same block of buildings joined the flat, the concierge’s lodge, the cellars and the shop at 50 rue Hermel.

A child of television

Alexander learned a great deal outside school: series, science fiction, superheroes, cartoons. His schooling would end after one term of the French lycée. Television and popular culture gave him a mental toolbox — understanding the world through models, laws and invented worlds that resemble the real one.

1981, 1984

On 18 November 1981, a brother was stillborn in Montreuil. In 1984, his younger brother Emmanuel was born. That same year, Gordon died of a heart attack at thirty-six. Alexander was twelve. His mother was left alone with a teenager, a newborn and a company.