In each of the three personal projects I have completed so far – Piémanson (2009-2013), A Myth of Two Souls (2013-2021) and Mystery Street (2022) —I have tried to work with reality in an oblique way. Although I do not pay attention to labels I like to think of my practice as Post-documentary. Post-documentary work is about removing enough elements from the real to reconfigure it as fiction. It is about listening and looking at the world to intimately translate what it offers you and to offer it in turn to the viewers of your images. It means accepting that a story can be told without relying on a linear narrative. Post-documentary work requires both the artist and the viewer to accept the ‘fluid’ nature of photographic images. The participants to this workshop will be invited to think about new ways one can translate one’s experience with reality into a sequence of pictures. You will be invited to photograph in Marseille according to a set of parameters we will decide together — in order for you to loose these very ideas en route while making work. On the one hand a good series of pictures happens when one is pursuing something very clearly but on the other hand it is only truly successful when one realize that the things one was not looking for matter just as much. If one learns how to listen and to look at the essence of things with clarity then reality has the potential to become stranger than fiction.
Cecile Poimboeuf-Koizumi, co-founder and director of publisher, Chose Commune, will be making a presentation/lecture during the workshop.
On the final evening, participants will make a presentation of the work they have produced during the 5-days to an invited audience at an atelier in Marseille. This will help clarify what you have achieved and understood and conclude the workshop.