Actes Sud releases Stephan Gladieu‘s book, “On allait au bord de la mer “ (We were going to the seaside).
As part of a major photographic commission from the Ministry of Culture and the BnF (French National Library), Stéphan Gladieu traveled the French coastline between the summers of 2022 and 2023, from the Belgian border to the Basque Country, from the eastern-Pyrénées to the Côte d’Azur. The portrait gallery he created allowed him to meet French people on vacation by the sea.
Whether alone, as a couple, with family, or with loved ones, the people we met were invited to pose freely, with the surrounding scenery as a backdrop. No staging, no artifice; everyone played their own role. For these full-length portraits, the pose was frontal, the light constant, and the distance between the subject and the lens almost always equal.
This series is a life-size portrait of French society, in all its diversity, singularity, pride, and naturalness. This work constitutes the second part of the “Ideal Standard” photographic trilogy, initiated in 2020 with North Korea (Actes Sud).
Stephan Gladieu : On allait au bord de la mer
Actes Sud
Texts by Leïla Slimani and Christophe Granger
24.00 x 30.00 cm
272 pages
ISBN : 978-2-330-20194-4
39.90€
www.actes-sud.fr
