Exil
Projet argentique, impression en chambre noire, 2019
This project explores exile through the figure of the cowboy.
The term exile refers to being outside one’s homeland. This situation involves coming to terms with and integrating a new culture. In so doing, one’s individual identity is altered. This reconstruction of identity is thus located between a past which follows us and a present which eludes us. For me, exile is a state of mind generated by feelings of presence and absence. I thus use two photographic procedures which accentuate this distortion of identity: the pinhole and solarisation. Using a pinhole to take a picture gives the image a blurry and ghostly quality which echoes the absence/presence duality found in someone in exile. For its part, solarisation, when carried out obsessively, contributes to the transformation of the image in the darkroom and through repetition brings to mind the transformation of identity through exile.