Benjamin Perron

My photographic practice, which addresses the general question “What is photography?,” is not foreign to my initial training in sociology. I take up this question by formulating hypotheses that I test by developing various alternative methods without a lens or without a camera. I set up pinholes in different places which I retrieve after months of exposure, or make contact prints on light-sensitive paper out of materials salvaged from my everyday surroundings and which I expose directly to the sun for several hours. My work thus explores space, but also passing time, whether through the duration of the exposure or the effect of time on the paper itself. In this way, the images have an intriguing materiality and a pictorial aesthetic which lead the viewer to think about the medium and the method used. My work thus seeks to stimulate reflection, but also to generate an emotion. In the end, a work of art must give rise to a resonance between the viewer’s inner and outer worlds while also resonating in the space in which it is shown.