This is one of the star exhibitions of the Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Valparaíso (Chile) – FIFah V 2023. The photographer is Brigitte Grignet. She accompanied her images with this text:
Photography allows us to physically experience the world. You have to set out to discover, with as few preconceptions as possible. Receive, feel, react. Above all, meet. Go beyond the surface. Find the essentials.
Returning to Chile after 10 years of absence, I had to fully arrive in the city and mourn what I was unconsciously looking for. Take ownership of the place, little by little. We retrace our steps. We wait for the light. We speak with the lady who sells her fish. I wanted to give myself the freedom to deal with my emotions. People, landscapes, details. The search for memories, the memory of a place. My experience of the country is mainly rural. In the south, we sit by the fire in the evening, we share mate. We eat (a lot) of potatoes. Stories are told of mermaids and ships of sailing souls. But this time it was about looking at the city of Valparaiso, a bohemian, dilapidated city, which displays its colors and shows off its scars.
The discovery came slowly. I walked tirelessly, trying to get into the houses. Without a specific project, I nevertheless had one desire: to meet mothers who raise their children alone. A way to echo my own story, to share an experience.
The images, however, do not describe this reality, they bear witness to the passing of time, they draw the trace of the other. Light evokes inner stories. By looking at the images, a story emerges, beyond the geography of a place. Traces of the past, the intersection between the personal and the life that unfolds there, before our eyes.
Fragments of life remain with me: Matias walking along Avenida Argentina, a book balanced on his head; two kids repairing a kite; Marisol remembering her daughter’s childhood; fishermen having breakfast after returning from sea; Floro in the Open City; Barbara and Ana sharing a beer. And then… the sound of the ghost’s footsteps.
Get as close to this life as possible. We remain an outsider, but we would like to arrive at this state of grace where we face emotions, where we absorb what is there, when “inside and outside click together. » We blink and there is a flash of life in front of us. Between reality and fiction, even magic, I tried to tell the story of this meeting
Brigitte Grinet
2022-2023
Opening reception on October 31 at 6 p.m.
Valparaiso Cultural Park
Cumming 590, Cerro Carcel, Valparaiso
Meeting on November 1st
