Text: Mathias, Allan, Maxime, Muslim, Galid, Karim, Thomas, Hamdoune, Loïc, Abdel Kasem, Arnaud,
Mélanie, Michael, Gabriel, Macario, Kevin, Thomas, David, Nagim, Jordan, Ibrahim, Adrien, Marie, Maureen, Arman, Dia.
Voice: Aurélie Ghilain

Do not confuse the reality of images (November 2014)
Marie Zolamian

"Do not confuse the reality of images" is a work I could have done in 1990, when I arrived in Belgium. I was then 15 years old and was deserting Lebanon.
Twenty-five years later, I wanted to understand how could react a group of teenagers, young European adults, who have never experienced war, who know it only through the resonances of History and news.
With the twenty-five interviews with young people (between 14 and 24 year-old) of the Youth House of Chênée, I placed the work in the educational mission of the Commemorations of the Great War (spread from 2014 to 2018). Confronting it with the thoughts that these young people develop from the current wars and conflicts. What do they know of wars, how do they impress them, how do they live the media spectacle of these conflicts? What arouse in them the concepts of commitment, resistance or heroism? Living in a country at peace, do they experience fear or distress at the situation of the world? What looks do they have to media truths, main source of contemporary history with young people? What empathy or lack of feeling do they develop in front of real violence? How do they relate to reality, with the sometimes conflicting ideologies, what consistency do they give to politics?
In the old City Hall of Chênée, the work is integrated in the Culture-Mariage hall. The polyphony of the voices of the young ones, performed by a single female voice, acts as a current memorial flow, in dialogue, with portraits of "Died for the fatherland" and a painted allegory after Pieter van der Borcht engraving entitled "Allegory on the difficulty to govern a diverse nation".