Florent Philippe

These series tell the story of a man returning to his homeland after 30 years of absence. They cannot exist without one.

He finds the places where, as a child, he would hide from this world he did not understand. He dreamed of a more livable place. Today he is rediscovering and looking for all the means to escape again. He uses utopian, absurd and poetic means. Overwhelmed with sensitivity, he now has the structure and the language to enjoy this tragicomic situation. Finally, he can return to the gaze all that emptiness which he did not want through work through the gap between the visible and the real.

I like to use derision and dreams to deal with sometimes difficult subjects.

I am the one who hides and watches himself. So behind this poetic image often hides an introspection of the tear treated with humor and derision.

Each series requires months of preparation and location. They are never done before they make sense. Aesthetics for aesthetics speak only around the edges of the sensitive and vanish very quickly. The places chosen therefore have memorial and symbolic value. Very little editing is done, otherwise there is nothing funny. What I want is to bring something to this supermarket of reality. To be more real than the real in order to better go beyond it, escape from it and find it wiser, more livable. Setting a ladder in the storm is not easy. By my side today my partner works with tireless assistance and an uncompromising look. "The reader" often yells in the wind and the cold.

These photos are to be seen as a dialogue between time and space. A novel between this researcher, who may or may not be me. This man who may be you.

Florent P.