Jean Michel Bruyère, LFKs L'habitude

»Thus custom becomes the first reason for voluntary servitude«, Étienne de La Boétie wrote in the 16th century. And 400 years later, Assata Shakur states in her autobiography: »People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.«
On 2 May 1973 Assata Shakur, a Black Panther activist and member of the Black Liberation Army, was stopped by the New Jersey police, shot twice and later convicted of the murder of a police officer. After more than six-and-a-half years under extremely brutal conditions in the maximum security wing of a correctional facility for women in New Jersey, she was able to escape to Cuba in 1979 and was granted political asylum there.
In L'habitude (custom), a musical, visual, theatrical installation and prologue to the cycle Violence & Institutions, author, film and theatre maker Jean Michel Bruyère and his Marseilles-based collective LFKs evoke Assata Shakur and the spirit of revolt.