“I entered the world in Dinard, in 1953, during a news projection – slightly delayed – featuring the crowning of the Queen of England. Through an extremely rare phenomenon, that I will not elucidate here, I was given birth by my grandmother (my mother, who was living in the Congo, was unable to give birth that day in Dinard), and already a few years old: three or four, I lost count, furthermore I attach little importance to these details. On the other hand, it is essential to know that the crowning of Elizabeth II was the first show I saw as a newborn – I still remember, as clearly as if I were at the ceremony itself, the beautiful balcony dresses worn by either the Queen herself or her accompanying demoiselles – or that the program featured a documentary about “Life in the big ponds”. My childhood, and in some ways throughout the later stages of my existence, featured the duality of an uncomfortable love of English – in as much as it is so difficult to love a nation that so despises us – and of a pronounced, if non-exclusive, attraction to water animals: in particular birds, but also fish – throughout my early years, I fished for zebra-fish and pike, either spoon-bait or by hand (most often by hand), amphibians and all that follows. It is also noteworthy that from my grandmother’s point of view, and perhaps that of other people, that I was considered, from birth, at least at sometimes, to be the possible reincarnation of one of her children (a marine officer) that she loved the most and who had just perished in Indochina.” Jean Rolin
With a degree from the école de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne of Paris, Kate Barry began working as a photographer at 28. Her first exhibition took place at the Bunkamura Gallery of Tokyo in 2000. She later had an exhibition entitled Portraits-Paysages at the Léo Scheer Gallery of Paris in 2005, and at the Basilique de Sant’Alessandra in Fiesole, Italy, in 2006. She works regularly with a diversity of news and fashion magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair or Elle.
Jolin Rolin was born in 1949 in Boulogne-Billancourt, and spent his childhood between Brittany and Senegal.
Dinard – Essai d’autobiographie immobilière
Jean Rolin and Kate Barry
Editions de la Table Ronde
ISBN : 2710368536
64 pages – 20 €
