A storyteller and traveller, Patrick Corillon set out to meet the boatmen of Thuin, men and women who, quite naturally, follow family path. In many homes in city on the river Sambre, people are born and die a boatman, the start and end point of a life punctuated by the life of the boat, not far from the shipyards and the Rivage district, where many houses preserve the memories of a vocation, rather than just a job.
A man of words, Patrick Corillon is by no means a historian. For him, history is spelt with a lower-case ‘h’ and is often spelt with an ‘s’, so much so that the narrative is plural, taking the form of songs that the boatmen of Thuin might have written or hummed. The artist’s field of expression is the river, his favourite breeding ground, states of mind and the imagination, that factory of images that we all carry within us, boatmen and women, people on board and people on land.
Lulled by the course of the water or inspired by the dreams of the boatmen, Patrick Corillon’s Chansons de halage embrace the banks of the Sambre until a pause on the water. It’s all about taking a pause when navigating to the rhythm of words. Patrick Corillon takes us to harbours we would never have pulled into, carried away “by the rhythmic waves of the river”, transported by the current of ten songs that are a joy to drift along with.
