Photography Exhibition Clément Cogitore: Braguino or the Impossible Community

Clément Cogitore visited Braguino twice (in 2012 and 2016), « Braguine’s place » in Russian, taken from the name of a family of ‘Old Believers’ living in a handful of huts lost in the middle of the Taiga deep in the heart of Siberia, 700 km from the nearest village. He went to Braguino to try to solve the mystery of Sasha’s drive to move to there with his family over thirty years ago, in the hope of living in peace, and constructing a completely self-sufficient lifestyle. However, very rapidly this paradise becomes the scene of an open battle between two families who cannot live side by side, who cannot agree to a shared way of life.

This impossible community is the central axis of Clément Cogitore’s film, photo and sound work.

Plunged into darkness, the installation at LE BAL is like total immersion for the visitor, at the heart of a narrative in several acts, each one a filmed fragment revealing another intrigue, each one with its own rhythm, place and action : arriving in Braguino by helicopter, Sacha’s dream, a bear hunt, the mysterious island where the children roam free, all build to the intense crescendo of an armed conflict. All of which throws us into a twilight world, as do the large, luminous photos in muted tones that track this journey.

With truly archaic dramaturgical prompts, Clément Cogitore evokes the conflictual tenets of the great myths. Braguino relates the experience of a two-pronged dilemma: to escape or stay put, to build something together, or destroy oneself. Far more than a mere ethnographical study, Clément Cogitore tells a cruel tale that echoes ‘the tipping point of our civilisation’.

If this world is doomed to perish, what does its disappearance really symbolise?