Bardenas Reales
I was covering a news story in Navarre when I discovered the Bardenas Reales. That’s where I “found” the piece of land that would serve as the setting for the photographs in this series. Once back in Paris, I began to imagine scenes that would play on the miniature character of the landscape. I sketched out a kind of storyboard, taking inspiration from the musical worlds of Tom Waits and Nick Cave, and the visual atmosphere of David Lynch and Wim Wenders: raw material for the imagination.
The series was made in the image of a road movie, a long walk through a desert with scars and signs of life, traces of a past or present occupation. I also like the idea of exploring a fictional world that blends in with enigmatic and silent landscapes. Between the lines, one can pick up on the idea of a land depleted by human activity. Manipulating and interacting with information in a world that has lost its sense of unreality . Thus the viewer, receiving the image, navigates between artifice and confusion, between acceptance and questioning of reality . The stagings and narrative possibilities contained in these images form a sort of traveler’s log; the Bardenas Reales as the barriers to a real and inaccessible elsewhere.
Born in 1980 in Angers, Guillaume Amat lives in Paris. A former archivist for Magnum, his past series include Brownie Circus (2003 – 2007), Nébuleuse (2008) and Chrysalides (2007 – 2010). Since 2008, Amat has been represented by Signatures.
Musée National Des Douanes
1 Place De La Bourse 33000 Bordeaux
Tuesday – Sunday, 10h – 18h
Tel : 05 56 48 82 82
