Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression rushed to Fukushima after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. To see for themselves. To bear witness. They photographed not to testify but by necessity, because they could not believe their eyes, and that the unbelievable magnitude of the devastation turned their amazement into a project. An atypical project deeply linked to a documentary photography expected not to tell the truth, but to offer a form of operational neutrality for the photographers to situate and express themselves. The show entitled Retracing our steps, Fukushima exclusion zone 2011-2016 develop into a series of repeated perspectives, ever-different angles of analysis and proposals that might seem contradictory, in order to probe a situation as thoroughly as possible, including what is non-visible and non-visual.
Christian Caujolle
An independent curator, Christian Caujolle worked formerly as director of photography at Libération, founded the agency VU’. He also teaches at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière in Paris.
Carlos Ayesta & Guillaume Bression, Retracing our steps, Fukushima exclusion zone – 2011-2016
Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles 2017
July 3 to September 24, 2017
Arles, France
