The sculptor Isabelle Chemin and Paul Melki worked together on 10 busts,
each made up of various elements and characters.
Each of the heads has a text to represent it.

 

What a scream!

The pale one: “I long for peace!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The face :

“These Two round lips keep me from spitting out quantities of sharp words.”

 

The rowdy one:
“GIVE ME SOME ROOM! GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure of the irresponsible aquatic one
(the hat):

 




When death conceals love
(the child soldier)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The violent character:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s tough to want to assume everything. Me, I bathe with the waters of innocence, I swim in the candor of birth, the one hiding at the bottom of the maternal waters, where all is purity alone. I saw nothing of his wrongdoings, I heard nothing of his laments, I therefore have nothing to say. I am here to cover the despairing memories with a smiling mask. One needs to live! "

 

The done-for assassin:

"Silently, I would drink my victims’ blood.
Daily, I would tear up members, swallow bland-tasting human flesh, champ bones like a dog champs at its rage, salivate with ferocious appetite the marrow that was their life.
I would throw them to the hatred of hyenas who would crush them with their spiky teeth.
I was on a quest for ever more of them and thus did death feed me, in this country where children who are not soldiers rot away.
After 10 years of such slaughtering, the war ended and here I am starved again.
Will I need to unleash new bloodbaths to have the right to subsist?”

 

The demon of desire

“Leave this country without regret!
Get to the gracious lands of the West, where you will tell your tales of terror.
Smother them with most horrible details, they are so fond of them, they who cannot afford your pleasures, heap upon the table of their conscience all the noxious dishes.
They will lick their lips, but feign disgust.
They will forgive you and call you a victim, positive that children know not what they do.
Go! Before it is your turn to be devoured by an infant.”

 

 

 

 

Who knows what a hand is holding!

 

 

Mask defined by unsettled harmony
Domingo speaks of his fallen grandeur:

 


“To be born like me with a handsome face and to be called a hood, just because I have a mustache ... THAT’S A BIT STEEP! Beauty is not calculated but it can be improved. And a small mustache does something for a man. It’s like a cradle for his nose to rest in, the thatched roof covering his mouth, the bush hedge to hide the sight of his chewing.”

 

 

 
The intruder:

"Turn right! Watch that bump! Go, son! SWIIIIIIIIISH!
Now that’s off-piste skiing for you!

 

The bloodsucker:
“No more laughing, I dare you to laugh!
If you laugh I will bite you.
Ha-ha, my good pal! Life is not a piece of cake!”

 

 

Unhappily happy

 

The 1st petty employee:

"Are you the bastard who rips off my face each time that lardass has a mood swing? Since you were hired my pay has gone down. Before, he was content to be happy or unhappy, now that we’re a threesome it’s totally more complicated."

 

The child's moment


Joy radiation, non-harmful:

 

“Amal GAMATE is my true name.
I think it’s very fitting. In fact everybody calls me that.
Listen to them! Look in back! On my behind, they are stuck to me like desperate men to a rock beaten by the waves.
I am their island and since they’ve been here, I am no longer desert.
I was christened Amal GAMATE. It’s a nice name!”

 

A rather tranquil male


The Serene’s Song:

"After so many days
Gained by love’s ways,
The Siamese sisters
Such quarrelsome blisters,
Are out of my life.
Not to mention the knife
They used, my wrinkles to design
The price to pay for those fortunes of mine.
My favorite wrinkles
In which my worth twinkles,
Face bowed to sorrow,
To joy, to the marrow.”

 

 

 

 

Salomé abandoned:

“I’ve been begging for mercy for 2000 years.
Were it not for Salome, no one would remember John the Baptist.
It fit into the palm of my hand, the severed head. It was ruthlessly stolen from me when I wished to caress it, pamper it, love it ...
He had denied me his body, so I demanded his head.
Now that I am old, all I have is this wrinkled, empty paw to remember my beheaded love.
Have pity, give me back my head! Please give me the alms of my youth!”

 

 

 

Climber listening to the mountain:

“A BIT STEEP! A BIT STEEP! You’re obviously not the one having to crawl your way up to listen to your hogwash.
And to think that some people think that psychoanalyst is a laid-back job! Listening is much more exhausting than talking.”

 

High collar:

"When you’re full of yourself,


you fill up my balls.


You don’t feel it?”

 

 

 

 

Guess who’s coming to skate tonight?

Loneliness of a skater:
“Who can tell me something?
No one to talk to me? Just a few words in passing.
Wish me a good day or insult me!
Don't leave me alone with this noise in my head: ‘swiiiiiiiiiiish’.”

 

 

 

True mask:

If you uncover my true face, I will be stark naked!
Truth is safe, when it is not being sought, it best remain hidden so as not to be altered, otherwise people all do with it as they like.
Am I happy when I hurt or do I hurt when I am happy?
When unhappy, I rejoice so as not to give myself away, glad to be able to do so.
Yet if I dropped my masks, would I still like myself?



The 2nd petty employee:

“Before, he was young, handsome, full of ambition, today he’s old, rich and he can afford to have as many masks as he wants. The true question is, as the poet said: ‘Do you still have to disguise yourself when you use wealth as a mask?’”

 

 

All the hangers-on:

"Mommy! Yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy! Mommy yummy!”






 

 

Full sun:

“Let's face it, the inside has more grace
Than this softened-up face
That is crying or laughing, it’s hard to explain,
Like an afternoon of sun and rain.
His wrinkles, I’m spurning
For I know that his yearning
Is more than we’re learning
And I smirk with impiety
At his half-assed serenity.”

 

 

   

 

 

 

Down and out when the cannon roars (Synagogue)

 

 

 

 

A few refugees:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After life:

"When evening appears,
And the heart hope no longer fears,
To tears with no glee,
To lives now desire-free,
I give myself over, used,
Uncertain, confused,
Crazed with death
Twisting out my breath.
An unwilling deserter, content
With a life well spent.
And yet of my glories
Remain only dusty pathetic stories.
My weary eyes
Postponing their demise,
Are holding back the tears
That for too many years
Were stored in great supplies."

 

The cemetery revelers:

 

 

 

 

(to the music of La Marseillaise:
a 7-voice choir)

Come all ye children of great poverty,
The days of hope have come and gone.
May they return, the days of hostility
And we will all of us be shot down
And we will all of us be shot down.
And do ye hear our eerie crying
Delighting those cruel murderers,
Getting high with all of our terrors,
Wiping us out as if we were not dying!
Oh pray, misfortune bro’s!
We’re cannon-fodder woes!
Let's die, let's die,
It is our blood
That’s gorging their furrows.

 

Late comes the evening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sound the charge my comrade!
Come and join the parade
Of those who of life have no care,
The spent, and those not wanted there.
Your fears you must cast,
Laugh off your embraces past.
For you, drunken love is waiting,
The one everyone’s misstating
Though they are all convened.
Come be fulfilled, unfeigned."