A collection of postage stamps constructs a fantasized setting in which bodily images, accumulated page after page, become homoerotic icons. The video Debout sous la langue (Upright Beneath the Tongue) offers a silent, almost internalized viewing experience. Its embedded narrative unfolds through subtitles, weaving together layered stories that move from memories to intimate fictions, from fever to sweat, from postcards to gay saunas. By superimposing addresses, the video traverses a desire for images that the stamps themselves fulfill, up to the wish to ingest them. Like a message to be deciphered beneath glassine paper, the stamps shift from objects into subjects of correspondence. Preserved in the Archives Gaies du Québec [LGBTQ2S+], following a donation from its collector, the philatelic album consists exclusively of so-called masculine representations. Featuring athletes, intertwined wrestlers, Christ on the cross, and Greek statues, this inventory reflects a lack of homosexual representation while simultaneously attempting to fill it. Debout sous la langue invites reflection on the power of images.

This work was created with the support of the Collectif Archives LGBTQI+ de Paris, the association Le Lac à l’épaule, the Archives Gaies du Québec, the France–Quebec Cooperation program, Nantes Métropole, and the Loire-Atlantique Department.

An edition of this video has entered the collection of FRAC Occitanie Montpellier.