Our paths crossed first crossed in 2011. Lola Reboud was presenting her series A Journey in Iceland at the Lagardère photo awards and I was on the jury. She got my vote!
Lola, the sweetness, the delicate distance, her eye round and precise and innocent. I let myself be carried away by the quietly determined sense of wandering that emanates from her photographs. Then I found her Moroccan series Les Ephémérides.
In September 2007, Lola left for Iceland to begin a documentary series on the island against the backdrop of seasons, climate change and the confrontation of her assumptions with insular reality. She traveled across the country and its capital Reykjavik, meeting people, marvelling at the landscapes, and recording scenes from daily life. She returned to Iceland in 2008 right after the collapse of its economy. Her work from this period is visually anchored in the crisis although it does not appear explicitly. In Lola’s work, narrative fiction is privileged over documentary.
The consistency of her worldview is revealed in her work on young people in Tangiers. From January to October 2011, Lola went to work for the artist Yto Barrada. She took the opportunity to produce a work on the relations between young men and women, underlining the universal beauty and the tenderness of unseen things, the particular chemistries among them, seductively lowered heads and fleeting glances.
On the gallery walls, both series are presented under the title “Les climats” and joined with a portrait of two young women, one from Iceland and the other from Morocco. They might be the culmination of Lola’s work so far: a frontal, candid portrait without any artifice,each country easily identified . For Lola, geography is just as important as people. The characteristics of the landscapes of the island, or of Morocco can be seen in each photo, with hues and moods of hot and cold, with the vegetation and topography of the environment. Lola’s photographs are like windows chiseled into countries and identities, into landscapes and individuals, into empty spaces and scenes bustling with life, and always shown with a gently withdrawn discretion.
Not in the headlines, but never far, Lola gives us clues about the climate of each country. She takes the time to look, to contemplate the unknown and attempt to recognize it. She has made her own photographic time which isn’t instantaneous. “I take pictures because I’m bad at painting. For me it’s the best way to enter into the world” says Lola. Just as she could paint from memory, she seems to summon her memories and dreams to photograph her subject with a certain candid abandon.
Pascale Giffard, Curator
Climats
May 10 – June 15 2012
Galerie Dupon
74, rue Joseph de Maistre
75018 Paris – France
