For Balayer – A Map of Sweeping (v.2018), the British artist Imogen Stidworthy visited Jacques Lin and Gisèle Durand's community in Monoblet. They were part of the ‘network’ that Fernand Deligny began in the Cévennes, in the south of France, to take care of children with complex problems, most of whom were on the autistic spectrum and non-verbal. The emphasis was on experimentation: he created a small community in stark contrast to life in an institution, replacing institutional isolation with living with others in the countryside. The adults had no special training, and withdrew from spoken language when with the children. Deligny created an environment in which aids such as maps, photography and film, took the place of language. These helped the adults ‘to see’, to catch traces of meaning in the gestures and ‘wandering lines’ of the children; they were also tools for shaping relationship with them.

When the network ended in the mid-1980s, Jacques Lin and Gisèle Durand continued to live with three of the children from the network, Janmari Jonquet (d. 2005), Gilou Toche and Christoph Berton, all of whom were autistic and non-verbal. In the installation, audio and video footage made by Stidworthy over several visits to their community in Monoblet in 2014, is brought into dialogue with Jacques Lin’s footage shot between 2000 and 2008. The gestures and activities of Gisèle Durand, Gilou Toche and Christoph Berton are observed in moving images, as intimate observations of the daily rhythm of the contemporary community and embodied traces of the network.

In Balayer – A Map of Sweeping projected images and spatialised voices evoke a landscape of different forms of language. Gisèle Durand describes the ‘wandering lines’ in a map she made in 1971, which shows the movements of Janmari and an adult sweeping the kitchen floor. It was one of hundreds of maps, or ‘tracings’, made by the adults, of the children’s movements, and a regular practice in the life of the network. Deligny’s commentary on the map and fragments of other writings are heard in ‘live’ translation into English, and projected as text in the original French. In another projected text we follow two stories told by Jacques Lin about Janmari, while in the videos we see Janmari, Gilou and Christoph filmed in timeframes up to fourteen years apart, as we cut between Stidworthy’s and Lin’s footage. Between these two viewpoints and different layers of time, daily rythms, gestures and movements, emerge as embodied forms of non-verbal language and relationship.

For one year, the Dr. Guislain Museum will be drawing inspiration from the French educationalist, philosopher, writer, film-maker and artist Fernand Deligny (1913-1996). Deligny’s approach to care, upbringing and social work is based on fundamental criticism of the intention to improve and change people. From 12 February 2022, the exhibition Circonstances, with a selection of maps, photos and excerpts from the film Ce gamin, là, makes way for Imogen Stidworthy’s Balayer – A Map of Sweeping.  The Deligny studio, which Simon Allemeersch is shaping together with young people from the Ghent psychiatric community,  continues to grow and evolve. The question 'How can Deligny's ideas inspire us today?' will be central throughout the year.