PARK BENCH (G13) GN

French creator-storyteller Chabouté (Alone, Moby-Dick) explores community through an everyday, often ignored, object: the common park bench. From its creation, to its witness to the fresh ardor of lovers, the drudgery of businessmen, the various hopes of the many who enter its orbit, the park bench weathers all seasons. Strangers meet at it for the first time. Paramours carve their initials into it. Old friends sit and chat on it for hours. Others ignore the bench, or (attempt to) sleep on it at night, or simply anchor themselves on it and absorb the ebb and flow of the area and its people. This could be a bench in my hometown or yours - the people in this little drama are very much those we already recognize.