ELLES RESPIRENT TOUJOURS
This book was first created as a tribute to Henri Cartier-Bresson's Images à la Sauvette.
It was selected in a competition to be exhibited at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. Later a second version was created for the ABBE (Artist Book Brisbane Event). Finally, the book was purchased by the Queensland State Library for permanent exhibit.
Initially made with a wooden cover, the second version was created with a corrugated cardboard exterior. The images and text are printed on heavy watercolour paper and hand bound. The first object was held together with a bicycle tire buckled to fit (not used for this version). Its concertina design intends to represent a wandering from wagon to wagon observing through the barred in windows. The poetic textual accompaniment is in French.
The original text in French:
je file.
Dès fois je m’arête et on me regarde doucement
Tu m’as dit patience
Tout le monde a attendu.
Un œil s’est fermé une vie entière, mais quand j’ai regardé, tu m’as regardé aussi
Car Parfois on a passé beaucoup de temps ensemble, en silence. Tous, puis certains se sont levés, ils sont partis. Ça a suffit.
Dernière bouchée de poussière, je respire plus.
Le parfum sur le pont, les rails eux respirent toujours.
Goûter l’entrevue, et sourire trop tard, j’ai écouté sans vraiment entendre.
L’étendue est immense, et on s’y prête avec un thé au lait.
Même au plus vite, la tête tombe, lèvres craquelées de chaleur.
Debout dans la porte, le nouveau vent m’accueille. Comme l’ancien
Quoi de plus décisif que ce qui m’échappe toujours, même quand il ne bouge plus.
Alors sur ma banquette bleue. Au bout de la plateforme. Je ferme l’œil pour ne pas rater le moment.
Car l’instant n’existe plus.
The English translation:
I run.
I stop and I am observed softly
You told me: patience.
Every one waited.
An eye was shut an entire life, but when I looked, you looked back.
For at times, we spent a lot of time together, in silence. All of us. Then some got up, they left.
That was enough.
Last gust of dust, I breathe no longer.
The scent on the bridge, the tracks always breathe.
The stretch is immense and we meet it with a milky tea.
A head falls forward, lips cracked in the heat.
Even at great speed, I taste a glimpse and smile too late.
What can be more decisive than what evades me even when it is immobile.
So on my blue bench, at the end of the platform; I close my eyes so as not to miss the moment, For the instant exists no more
2017
FOUR FIELDS AND A POOL
On another grey day.
She was blue. Green. Dark.
All shades in between.
Empty and full.
Like four fields and a pool.
This book is a showcasing of a photographic collection. Mostly film photography, there are also some digital images. The variety in location and thematic creates a visual voyage. The intention is to play with the flow of visual language to create a patchwork of time and space. Using the theories of film editing I permit a new reality to appear thanks to the juxtapostion of images from all over the globe. The textures and structures build a path. They speak of human activity in the emptiness left behind, or the silence of a break in time. They constitute a puzzle of witnessing the details on greater scales and on smaller ones. The book is simply hand bound with cardboard and brass screws. The concept is to permit a non-poluted immersion in a photographic story, free for interpretation.
2017
AN INSTANT OF NON-EXISTENCE
Smoke, smoked, smoked
Light, Ignite, burn.
Grey fragrance.
Consuming, consume, consumed.
Crumbling to ashes.
This objet was created with photos taken in Backi Petrovec, Serbia. This small community of Slovaks living in Serbian borders has a very particular identity. The film photography taken there with and Olympus OM2 has a been a documentation and a support for a short documentary. The short film is still in the making after several return trips to the small town. This was a first exploration of one of the main characteristics : smoke. It lives in the walls and fills spaces. The town itself seems to be crumbling in ashes. The objet is made with plexiglass panes assembled with hinges. The base of the box is a closed in compartment filled with tobacco. When it is closed the book creates a cube. Opened it takes the shape of a cross which represents the more traditional aspects that the community keeps with it. At the center, the tobacco brings it all together. It is sitting around smoking that they gather to share. It is also how we consume things, time, a place, ourselves.
2014