À la Recherche de Monsieur Tan

À LA RECHERCHE DE MONSIEUR TAN follows the search for a man who used to live in the artist’s neighbourhood in Marseille. Monsieur Tan came to France in the late 1970s to escape the Khmer Rouge and genocide. In order to be allowed to remain, he made himself out to be ten years younger. He made his living as a mechanic out of an old backstreet garage. In his mid-seventies and still working, he would reflect about life as he was fixing Vespas, sat on a stool he had built himself. He preferred using original parts, and, seemingly nothing was beyond repair for him. He lived his life quietly but with care and sincerity. One day, Monsieur Tan had to close the garage. He disappeared, without anyone taking much notice. The search moves from France and Italy, to Cambodia and Thailand examining the possibilities of a life. Before Monsieur Tan left, he had been a familiar face. His disappearance was akin to an evaporation, no one seemed to wonder where he might have gone. À LA RECHERCHE DE MONSIEUR TAN is only partly a physical search but also an effort to gain understanding and closure. It remains unresolved to the public. Monsieur Tan’s fate remains somewhat ambiguous and moves from fact to fiction in an effort to respect his privacy. The project includes Monsieur Tan’s own words, in text and spoken form, his voice keeping authorship over his own story.