Tom Drahos’ background is plural and transversal.  First there is Prague, where he obtained a degree in graphic arts and began studies at the National Academy of Cinema, which he later finished at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques («Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies») in Paris. The latter has since become the Femis and is the official school of French Cinema. This rich educational background is living proof of his curiosity, which has only grown over the years. (more…)

Lea Habourdin doesn’t care much for the conventions of photography, her series mix black and white as well as colors; her realism hugs the curves of blurred over-closeness and of nervous proximity. Her work is similar to an encyclopaedic process, her museum of (very) natural histories is of fragmentation and harshness. Lea Habourdin observes, dissects, and applies the scalpel to her everyday life, adventures and encounters.  However, this is nothing like a simple personal diary; she focuses on and confronts disparate bodies. In »Cahier de Doléances«, a sort of comprehensive diorama, flesh comes together with flesh, without hierarchy, and they engage almost by mimetism on a contradictory dialogue about their conditions, whether animal or human. (more…)

The theme of landscapes is often observed from an angle of contemplation and vertiginous experiences. It is an outstandingly romantic subject. Landscapes, whether urban or rural, are a playground, an area of astonishment and wander, as well as of loss and suffocation. Venturing into such territory often means facing a strong aesthetic dimension. But landscapes must be viewed primarily as a system, a perfect theorem of time and space, of flows and crossroads, of boundaries and crossings.  However, if one accepts to be “in conflict” with them, whether as a vision or a production of space, and despite their apparent obviousness, they may be put into perspective and thus reinvented. (more…)

All acts of photographical creation must be audacious, not in terms of virtuosity but in terms of accepting that this visual expression is first and foremost paradoxical. The work of Anais Boudot, which I shall present here, is of this type; rendering it difficult to speak of photography, as the artist herself refers to it as photographical. Indeed, these photos come at us like creatures tearing apart all realism and crumbling to dust all temptations of simple representation.  In “Exuvies” (an Exuvia being the envelope or exoskeleton an insect leaves behind after its moulting or metamorphosis) we find ourselves facing hybrid and fanciful spaces where reality dances with the devil. Anais Boudot transgresses the protocols of photography through the filter of experimentation, leaving behind all concerns of modern life, and testing the limits of her visibility.  For this, she uses long-forgotten (so-called archaic) methods, not for their aesthetic dimension but for their ability to act as a wake-up call and question the very idea of representation. The unsettling majesty of her photographs lies within the infra-ordinary, a floating poetic presence that has freed itself from what is simply decorative. These dreams of things are a dive suspended in mid-air where the photographical isn’t but a simple memory activated: we are at an interstice between dreamlike surrealism and primitive disembodiment.  The elegance of the flower bouquet lies within its absence and toxic aura, forests become crepuscular and stifling, cradle to the sacrifice of contemplation, a handshake becomes a mutating sculptural power struggle. This incarnation crystallizes through the need to take back roads and the acceptance that the exploration of these strange, solitary and unknown times be done through instability, doubt and humility. The photographical matter becomes thus porous, a duality between what we see and what eludes us. The shade in our sight. Anais Boudot explores how we comprehend photographical images beyond simple stills. Her love of experimentation, of visual disruption and her desire to question her certitudes and abilities have led her to video and installation art (these can be seen on her website). Her spectral poetry can be seen pushing the depths of the visible world. Anais Boudot (fr, 1984), lives in Roubaix, France. Graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, and Fresnoy -  Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing www.anais.boudot.free.fr/   (Translation Ramona Bourhis)

This series titled «When Water Comes Together With Water » finds its origins in the literary universe of the famous American short story writer Raymond Carver, whose writing is concise and where the silence of his wretched characters, is worth a million words. A few lines suffice to show his mastery of the ellipsis.

Claire Laude’s series is to be viewed in the light of introspection and therefore that of the ellipsis, her photos represent a single vast and contradictory identity drift that is some times psychological (seen from a spatial point of view) and other times physical.

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