This work is inspired by an excerpt from the novel Against Nature by J.-K. Huysmans, which depicts a morbid and monstrous dimension of nature. This poetic description made me want to confront the landscapes along the Rhône and Arve rivers with scenes of domesticated nature.

While walking along the Geneva banks, I gathered and collected the surrounding flowers. They are known under different names such as indigenous, protected, invasive, or endangered. Each category was photographed as floral compositions, reminiscent of the domestic and aesthetic aspect of a home bouquet. More dreamlike images of vegetation taken in the greenhouses of the Geneva Botanical Garden add an element of uncertainty to the reality of this vegetation.

More experimental photographs attempt to create new landscapes around this feeling of the sublime and the dream. To do this, I collect the negatives of my images. They are then soaked in various acidic mixtures and water from the Rhône or the Arve, depending on the proximity of the shots, for several days. The deterioration and overlay of the original image initiates a new form of landscape, reminiscent of the iconography of dreams.

I propose a form of visual wandering and uncertain waiting through a short film that complements the corpus of images. A sequence of contemplative shots evoking a concrete nature and lush greenhouse underpins the poetic wandering from the vicinity of the Jonction to the Verbois dam. Some images, which may recall The Zone in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker, others, more directly centered on the flowers themselves or on the buzzing insects around them, are conceived as very minimalist natural tableaux. A universe linking the inside and the outside, straddling the wild and the artificial greenhouses of the region.

« The large black body of the cargo ship comes to a halt. I reflect on my love for the sea, space, and time, which have nothing to do with those of the earthbound. » —Alain Tanner

The port is a distinctive place that serves as a link between land and sea, between the journey and its return. Merchandise and tourists spill out from the open mouths of cruise ships onto the docks. There’s a blend of nostalgic and repulsive emotions that emerge from the flow contained for weeks, even months at sea. The port becomes its effervescent receptacle, with its immense framework animating it like a steel puppet.

I envisioned a photographic study of landscapes at the port of Genoa. Its forms and mechanisms are captured when they come to a standstill, reduced to nothing more than the city’s bones and backbone. On pause, until tomorrow. Frozen, yet only asleep. Sculptural forms created by the warm light of the Mediterranean, photographed in a slow process, composing with the romantic colors of the place that will echo the inspirations of Baroque and Renaissance painters, such as Caspar David Friedrich.

A major question in the process of my work is the representation of the sublime and its resonance. I wanted to capture the architecture of this port site by photographing its cranes and other metal machines specific to the location. This place projects something fascinating and difficult to grasp, making it very attractive in my eyes.

Imposing this landscape form on the labyrinthine architectural elements of the port of Genoa, while including the parameter of color so typical of the Mediterranean basin, creates an original photographic series that reveals this little-known environment. A combination of dreamlike portraits and contemplative images is an attempt to create new port landscapes. The choice of compositions, textures, lighting and hues is crucial in realizing this in-depth work and achieving a coherent overall result.

Spinning eyes. They were a mixture of water and ashes, venom and chameleon. The anger subsided. The walls recovered their solidity after taking the color of the storm. They were filled with asperities and old memories still wet with fear. The room was drowning, but the body remained standing. A blue and fluid standing.

This body of images tells the story of a terrestrial adventure towards the lesser-known and undoubtedly towards the idea of fantasised fiction, close to illusion. Imagined as an atlas hung on a blue wall, these images point towards the imaginary. A projection into the fantastic, akin to a mirage, a mad dream. This time, the idea is of stopping, of immobility, of prolonged pauses in still and moving images in a recognisable but deceptive landscape.

After various interventions during the process of creation, poetical and fragmented images appear on the paper and the screen releasing their own delicate stories. Through the black light some unique and invisible colours appear on the negative. The sensitive plant named Mimosa Pudica and the bright chameleon are transforming, metamorphosing using the eyes of the viewer as the trigger. Others pictures evoke mimicry, camouflage and our relationship with the animal and vegetal world.