Valentin Pinet — Le sel est libre, 2026
Valentin Pinet — La chanson du faux-saunier, 2026
Valentin Pinet — Procès-verbal d’arrestation, 8 mars 1790

With On the Salt Line, Valentin Pinet revisits the history of an eighteenth-century fiscal border located in the Forez mountains, between Auvergne and the Loire region. At the time, the gabelle – the royal tax on salt – created strong disparities between territories, giving rise to smuggling practices documented in the arrest records preserved in archives. For Jeune création internationale, the artist reconfigures his film as a three-channel video installation introduced by an original arrest record and an a cappella sound composition. By bringing to light the individual and collective trajectories concealed behind the administrative document, this new installation exposes the acts of adaptation and resistance that, from one era to another, shape relationships between individuals and systems of power. A local history thus becomes a point of entry for questioning the ways in which territories are constructed, regulated and inhabited.

Drawing on archives, narratives, and field research, Valentin Pinet investigates the ways in which the past persists within contemporary spaces. Through the exploration of written, filmic, and pictorial documents – set in dialogue with the knowledge and lived experiences of local residents – he reactivates historical situations through staging and collaboration. Pinet brings together documentary inquiry and collective reinvention to explore how memory is transmitted and transformed.