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The White Ferals (2007) is one of Pauline Curnier Jardin’s first works. She filmed it while staying in Rauma, in Finland. The port city is dominated both socially and economically by a nuclear power station: there were various scandals during its construction, which was managed by a French multinational that has since gone bankrupt. In the film, a voiceover admits that she experiences boredom when she sees the landscape, but her tone soon changes: she decides that something fantastic might happen. Curnier Jardin creates fiction from the reality around her: she films a group of children playing on derelict land and calls them ‘The White Ferals’. The children are wearing white radiation suits and carrying toy guns. They’re on their way to the municipal swimming pool. Curnier Jardin describes the children as if they were a marginalised group who seem threatening or incomprehensible. Inspired by the Canadian filmmaker Robert Morin, the artist adopts a humanist, speculative stance towards such groups.
The White Ferals is an important film in Curnier Jardin’s oeuvre, dealing with themes of freedom, storytelling and setting up a creative process. As an artistic strategy, the artist combines different film genres – ethnographic film, thriller and electropop clip – and uses them as an emancipatory and critical tool.

Credits:
Images, text, editing : Pauline Curnier Jardin
Co-production : Sotka Residency-Kankaanppää/Finland
language : French with English subtitles
translation: Mark Pemberton 
Raumars - Artists-in-residence programme 2007
Courtesy of the artist and ChertLüdde, Berlin and Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam.