“Le repos du fakir” (2003), Stéphane Argillet and Gilles Paté
learn to recognize and denounce hostile architecture. often it’s disguised as “artistic design”, but they just want to be cruel to homeless people.
I often think about how quickly my health took a nosedive while homeless that led to be becoming physically disabled and unable to walk and I had multiple doctors orders to be on bedrest and I had no bed to be in. I couldn’t even lay to rest on benches in town because they’re all hostile.
I got a simple infection, which led to permanent disability.
We know that homelessness and disability are very linked, and we know homeless people are often disabled or become disabled.
I wonder what my health would look like today if I wasn’t forced to always be moving, and to never be able to rest. If even I could’ve safely laid down for a few hours every day. Maybe I would’ve made a full recovery. Who knows.
looks like “Le repos du fakir” translates to “the poor’s rest”
no it doesn’t.
okay… what does it say?
The word fakir comes from the Arabic word faqr, which means “poverty,” but a Fakir is specifically a holy man/mystic. He may be poor (by choice), but that is only one of his qualities. Significantly, he is often depicted in art, popular culture, and caricature sleeping or sitting on a bed of nails. Fakirs are also associated with performance art where they perform physically uncomfortable positions and tasks with apparent ease. This is such a great title because you have a street performer (Stéphane Argillet) putting himself in physically uncomfortable positions with apparent ease, like fakirs do, but also because it makes you think about the idea of the homeless or impoverished person. In the places where this hostile architecture is created, we treat the like homeless like nuisances, the same way one might try to discourage pigeons, raccoons, or pests. However, there are many different religions and cultures that hold up the person without a home, possessions, or attachments to society as a holy man, a mystic, someone to learn from. Comparing and contrasting the situations gives me a lot to think about.
At least, that’s my takeaway. There might be even more layers of meaning here that I don’t understand or am not aware of, and I welcome insights from native French speakers or people more familiar with Fakirs to add their insights.
When you type “Le repos du fakir” into google translate it doesn’t even translate into “the poor’s rest,” but to “the fakir’s rest” because fakir is a specific existing word in English, French, Arabic, and other languages. I’m not sure how you got your translation. Maybe when it translated you did fakir by itself and it suggested a related term in another language?
I’m not trying to jump down your throat, it’s just that it really bummed me out and struck me as odd to see someone tack on an incorrect and unresearched translation to a post instead of checking the notes for an accurate translation, asking someone else for a translation, doing more research, or just enjoying the piece of art… especially when the actual meaning of the title is so excellent.
That does explain why Google couldn’t just translate it on one go. It did do that. It perceived everything except “fakir” as French and gave “rest of the ____”. Fakir by itself it took as Turkish and gave “poor”. Those together made sense and I didn’t investigate it further
