Pascal Bollon

Category: A Lost World

Africa from 1914 to 1958, a lost world conjured up from scattered pictures, movies and letters, some research, memories and a bit of reverie.

1918 - Africa - Rhodesia - Lusake - Ox train - the laager (AI coloured)

The Laager

Every evening in the savannah, it is the same. The roaming band has to organise for the night. A temporary shelter to protect itself from predators, animals or otherwise. As they move tomorrow, nothing too fancy, and mainly relying greatly on the individuals in the group. That was then, at...

At the Edge of Reality

Doom diving from on high, whooshing past the balcony. Adjusting angle and speed for the perfect hit. No hesitation, no brakes, terminal velocity. Darting to and fro, like a loony woodpecker. Hovering an instant, blinking out of existence the next. Gravity? Flight envelope? Nah, one last wink over its shoulder...

When Memories Become Unmemorable

When Memories Become Unmemorable

The last piece of furniture has been disposed of. It was the worms that got all of them. Some, most maybe, were 150 years of memories written in wood. Eaten through, shedding little showers of sawdust every now and then, when you nudged them. Hours, weeks, months spent to try...

Time Vortex in a Sunny Bedroom

Time Vortex in a Sunny Bedroom

Bed Wall Desk I lie. I stare. I read. Nothing in Nature is unbeautiful – Tennyson Desk Wall Bed I lie, eyes open. I stare, eyes open. I read. Eyes open. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. – Kipling Bed Balcony Desk I sit. I...

The Club

The Club

All of it stopped when my grandmother died. It did not have to, but there was an inevitability to it. Maybe because they were doing it for the kids, not so much for themselves. And when the reason went, the endless days and weeks just evaporated. The visitors disappeared, the family...

Chameleons

If you want a friend, get a dog. Warren Buffet. Do you eat whale, horse, rabbit, guinea pig? What about domesticated pigs? Are animals just emotional support, Life’s guide dogs? Or should they be re-introduced where they were hunted to extinction? Whatever the case, and whichever side of the discussion...

Hunting

Look, you ask me why I have so many photos of animals I shot, so many teeth, horns and skins? Pictures of antelopes shot in 1917, 1929, 1937 or 1943. I understand your puzzlement if I then tell you how much I regret that the landscapes I loved are now...

The Silence Between Pictures

Silent and noisy. We achieved that as a family every single day. We stacked bird cages in rickety towers in living rooms, until it looked, smelled and sounded like Madagascar – the movie that is. The screeches, hoots and whistles of dozens of species of exotic small birds would swell and...

Likasi, the heart of darkness

From Ghent to Likasi, the Heart of Darkness

1899. You are writing a novel about travelling back to the origins, of man, of mankind. You want to express physical, cultural and psychological challenge. It has to be a journey into the deepest, the darkest the most unknown. What would instantly say: primal, savage, mysterious? For Joseph Conrad, there...

A Past to Dream of, a Future to Hope for

And so, after a brief trip down South to Claviers, the first crates of memories start piling up in my office. Like the memories of youth, they come as a mud-slide of materials, un-processed, raw, and yet, with an underlying narrative. Still, I have now a large part of the verifiable...