Itinérance – Itinerant – photography exhibition, Paris

Itinérance is a photography exhibition in the Jardin du Luxembourg from 5-16 September 2019. It features three photographers: Sandrine Duval, Francois Lakosy, and Florian Gautier.

The exhibition is a ‘symbolic journey’ of three itinerant photographers ‘facing a fragmented world, enigmatic and tinged with melancholy, but also filled with humor and tenderness.’

Sandrine Duval ‘ventures into a mysterious reality, from which she captures and relates solitary shadows and whimsical silhouettes, oscillating between clarity and darkness … vaporous mist, heavy fabrics or blinding light.’ ‘Blur, backlight and chiaroscuro, over-framing, depth and frontality, make up a disturbing image, where the dream merges with reality.’ The photographs are in old frames ‘like an open window on another world.’

Francois Lakosy’s landscapes ‘invite viewers to travel as much as they offer the promise of an asylum.’ ‘If human presence is discreet, it is nevertheless essential, affirming the possibility of a harmonious dialogue between man and the environment in which he finds himself ... and gets lost.’ From the extreme whiteness of ice to the obscurity of a crepuscular sky, Francois Lakosy captures different shades ‘open to distance and contemplation, crossed by bodies, glances and thought.’

Florian Gautierhas spent about ten years in Southeast Asia. His images ‘bear the seal, the stigmas, even if the places are never explicit.’ His journey appears through his images of ‘charcoal and incandescent black and white’ tracing ‘an autobiographical, dreamlike and chaotic itinerary.’ Gautier says ‘it is a life cycle backwards: from desolation to tenderness, from death to life’ where ‘elements and animals accompany faces and silhouettes by spoofing their fury, their sweetness and, ultimately, their hope.’

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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