Ma chère maison

Paris, France. 2023 – 2026

France may possess the greatest number of historical artifacts and works of art dispersed across private collections. In almost every home, one can find at least a single antique plate. Many of these collections are not the result of deliberate collecting, but rather accumulated memory, with objects passed down from generation to generation. At a certain moment, the time comes when this memory must be sold.

Marc and Elena live in Paris, in a house they bought 35 years ago. Marc is a mathematician and chess player. As a Polish Jew, he managed to leave for the USSR in 1939, only a few days after the division of Poland between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. His entire family who remained in the German-occupied zone perished. In 1947, Marc made his way to France. Elena emigrated from the USSR; she is a teacher and writer.

Marc is also the owner of a large collection of antique pewter tableware. At first, the objects left one by one, but eventually a buyer appeared who took everything in a single day. The shelves stood empty, replaced by freshly renovated walls.

All these stories are individual, and at the same time remarkably alike. It is a personal “Cherry Orchard,” as Chekhov once wrote. Yet even without walls and possessions, our memories always remain with us. As do our faces.

Ma chère maison — Paris. Bagneux. Mark and Elena in front of their house, offered for sale.

Paris. Bagneux. Mark’s room with a collection of antique pewter and silverware.

Paris. Bagneux. Mark in his room before shelves of antique tableware.

Paris. Bagneux. Mark’s room with bare walls after renovation. The collection has been sold.

Paris. Bagneux. Elena and Mark in their house, preparing to go outside.

Paris. Bagneux. Mark, a mathematician and professional chess player, still enjoys solving chess problems and studies.

Paris. Bagneux. Elena prepares chess collections for sale.

Paris. Bagneux. Elena and Mark place an online advertisement to sell their collections.

Paris. Bagneux. Elena holds a seventeenth-century antique pewter plate in her hands.

Paris. Bagneux. Guests once filled Mark and Elena’s house; now they come ever more rarely. The wooden table was made by Mark himself.

Paris. Bagneux. Mark and Elena in Elena’s room, where her wedding dress, worn thirty-five years ago, hangs on the right.

Paris. Bagneux. The house has been sold.

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