Decors of all kinds have always fascinated the photographer. In Paris, she immersed herself in the set building workshops of Fémis, the world-renowned school of cinema. Later in Bucharest, she explored the city’s movie studios. Ever seeking new frames of reference, she changes perspectives, countries, eras… Fascinated by the disappearance of the island of Trompeloup, swallowed up by the tides off the shores of Pauillac, the photographer has focused her gaze upon the Gironde estuary for two years now. This series of 25 photographs captures an environment in a state of perpetual change – the estuary’s string of islands, whose shapes fluctuate in sync with the river’s currents, and whose landscapes evolve in rhythm with the seasons of peripatetic agricultural workers.
Certain islands have been inhabited and cultivated through the centuries. Just under a dozen of them were thus settled by man. Yet as time has passed and agriculture evolved, gradually the islands have been deserted, with nature reconquering them and their neglected embankments. Today, they’ve become a cultural and geological heritage in need of preservation.
The series Voyages insulaires is co-produced by the Fonds régional d’art contemporain (Frac) Aquitaine, the departmental institute of artistic cultural development (IDDAC), arrêt sur l’image galerie and Château Palmer, with the support of the Conseil départemental de la Gironde, the association Gens d’estuaire, , the Photographic Contemporary Art Center – Villa Pérochon (CACP) in Niort and Central DUPON Images. The series earned Maitetxu Etcheverria a 2017 individual creative grant award from Drac Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
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Château Palmer
Margaux, France
September 02, 2017 to December 20, 2017
