2013

Temps Mort , literally translated by Dead Time means Downtime. Temps Mort is a series of digital and analog photographs which portrays the natural environment around the Harpia’s Cayolar*. It is cut off from civilization, material comfort and above all from the anecdotal trivialities of everyday life. Through emblematic elements selected from this place, I describe a no man’s land spreading strong symbolical and spiritual values. This work has been published in book form in which pictures and words are both creating a contemplative and distended rhythm in the reading timeline.
My purpose was to depict this wild environment as a threshold between the ordinary and the supernatural. As for me, this landscape is a place of remembrance.
Contrary to my usual photographic approach, I did not want to provoke a sensational effect with staging and complex photomontages. Most of the photographs are taken in the natural landscape. This way, I can establish that it is not necessary to transform or edit a photograph to create an extraordinary depiction. The framing of the photographs itself and a narrative layout can influence this feeling.

*The cayolar is a shepherd's hut in the western Pyrenees. It is used as a shelter for the summer pastures but also as an emergency refuge. In their ancestral forms, they are constructions entirely made of piled up stones.

"Gathering rosary beads in a hermit's retreat.
Behind ramparts, petrified rotting and freshness live together like roots of the same heart.
Between the moist earth and the dry wind, frozen sentinels curl up in the whistling of trees and a distant jingling.
Mellow peacefulness and hostile colors rest on the fertile ground.
Washed by the mist, polished by the wind, purified by the sun."
Excerpt from the artist’s book "Temps Mort".