Decazeville – Der Berg, der brennt

In video recordings, interviews and a parcours consisting of seven screens, French video artist and documentary filmmaker Nina Gazaniol Vérité portrays the community of Decazeville in the department of Aveyron in southwestern France, a former mining region. Little remains today of the once flourishing iron and steel industry; the last mine was closed in 2001. Here stands a mountain called ‘Lou puech que ard’ (the mountain that burns) because of the hot natural gas that seeps out of the ground. This hill is symbolic of an area that has been exploited and depleted, but also of the strength to continue living despite all adversities. ‘Decazeville’ is structured like a television series and takes the form of a video installation, located at the intersection of documentary film and visual art. Visitors are invited to move around a space that represents the Decazeville area for a certain period of time: between reality and fiction, between Zoom interviews and roller hockey games, between remote-controlled cars and discussions about the apocalypse, between folk dances and empty oyster shells.

Nina Gazaniol Vérité studied performing arts, journalism and art in public spaces. She works as a visual and video artist and documentary filmmaker in various contexts and collaborates with and for other artists. In her own work, she seeks to connect film, space, performance and documentation. Decazeville was created over a period of two years and is her first full-length production.