Cœlacanth
2016
Artist's book, limited edition of 10 copies, digital photographs printed on Kozo paper.
Size : 13 in x 19 in ; 66 pages.
The Coelacanth is a fish. It has evolved very little in the last three hundred and fifty
million years. It has an organ that is similar to a lung and it resembles the aquatic ancestors of
terrestrial vertebrates. This fish lives at depths of over one hundred meters below sea level and
seems to have been forgotten by evolution. In its flank, this aquatic animal carries a destiny that
was cut short. What I photograph is like this coelacanth, from another age and yet still present, I am the index of things that pass through time, undergo its action but do not fulfill their destinies.
An alternative to traditional methods of access to knowledge of the other, Cœlacanthe comes in the form of an artist's book and an installation and forms a collection of photographs taken during various trips in France and Europe, in museums but also in ordinary places. The photographs and their captions, nourish a questioning on European society, its environment, its rites, beliefs and other data that builds it. Through assemblages, repetitions and transparencies, the editing of the images reintroduces a dynamic where everything seemed motionless and tries to restore the persistent movement of things that have changed function or lost their usefulness. I then try to grasp what makes them objects of in-between and to draw the poetic dimension from them.
These associations of photographs propose a perception of the image from several angles and reconfigured in different environments and dimensions. It is also the way to think of photography and artistic creation as powerful tools for the actualisation of our cultural heritage.
