Laurent Chéhère, born in Paris in 1972 and formerly working in advertising, decided to dedicate his life to his two passions after a world tour: travelling and photography. Travelling from La Paz to Lhassa and from Bamako to Bogota, inspires him for his artistic work, exploring documentary and conceptual photography.
The Flying Houses series started in 2007, is a poetic view on popular Parisian suburbs – Ménilmontant in particular – where Laurent Chéhère lives. « I wanted to tell the true or invented story of those sad and battered anonymous houses and give them an identity. » In that same spirit, he starts to take pictures of the old – for him interesting – buildings, before isolating them andplacing them in the clouds.
Inspired by two films, The Roving Castle of Hayao Miyazaki and Le Ballon rouge of Albert Lamorisse, his images in levitation invite us to a light promenade through old time Paris . His work is dedicated to inhabitants and places, that became invisible; Laurent Chéhère is interested by: “Roms in the suburbs, Africans in squalid buildings ready to catch fire, a circus with gypsies and a Porn Cinema around Pigalle“.
FESTIVAL
Photo Phnom Penh 2013
November 30 – December 31, 2013
http://www.institutfrancais-cambodge.com
