Time for Celebration

Sister Henriette, Sister Danielle, Sister Catherine, Sister Geneviève… and up to twelve nuns are all in the same boat. Twelve nuns, dressed in their robes, sharing a day off. More specifically, we see them in the Grotto of Padirac, in the western Pyrenees, to the north of Lot, where the villages all end in –ac. The finale, a great underground vault. Their cloister, the stomach of the earth.     And more specifically, in Le Lac de la Pluie, where they are on the way to the exit after the tourist visit with the happy gondolier, fascinated with La Grande Pendeloque, the 60-metre stalactite which lies behind them, the great jewel of this calcareous cathedral which hangs from the ceiling carved from the rain and current in a thousand-year old alabaster. It is a labour of time.   Meanwhile, another boat full of civilians goes inside the cave, and the vessel goes and leaves the photo of tourism turned into art. There is time in it like there is a party in it. Time for celebration. That’s why we have chosen this image as the announcement of our tenth anniversary: ten years of Punto de Vista. Nobody bought it on leaving the cave, or perhaps someone did, but nobody kept hold of it and it ended up in some street market in Paris, which is where we rescued it. It is a happy gift. The legends of the surrounding villages say that the devil lives in the depths of this cave. Only 40% of the cave has been explored so we still do not know what demons lie deep inside it. It is better that way. Ten years of mystery.   It all began on 9th July 1889, when Edouard Alfred Martel took the first step into the cave: “No human being has gone into these depths before us, no one knows where we are going or what we are seeing. Nothing so strangely beautiful has ever been presented to us before. Unanimously and spontaneously, we all ask ourselves the same question: Are we not dreaming?” Except for the distances, it was a similar feeling for us.. It all began on 15th February 2005, with the same exploring pulse of someone who is entering a deep and unknown world, Punto de Vista was born. And we are still dreaming.

And this, our billboard for 2016, is once more an invitation to look away and concentrate one’s gaze on devotion to what is beyond the tale.  Here is the great example: the hand that touches the water. One of the sisters, probably Sister Agnès, tastes the virginal water of the grotto with her bare hand. If it had not been for this detail, for this gesture, we would not have chosen this photo. We aim to sum up our spirit, the journey of these ten years of the festival in that hand. A hand that abandons orthodoxy and discipline in the direction and search for new feelings, the caress of the water almost touches the sin.