After a turbulent year spent covering uprisings in the Middle East, Mathias Depardon traveled to the Black Sea to reconnect with a more lyrical strain of photography. The poetry that emerges from these two months of wandering the shores of five countries is as rough as the region itself. The skies are clear but the horizon is gray. The sea has a light not seen on eye-catching tourist photographs. It also has a mood, which is why it got its name , given by the first merchants who came into contact with its oily waves, and to which the people in Mathias Depardon’s pictures respond. The Black Sea is virile. This is not the land of the sirens, but that of the warlike Amazons. Depardon has left behind the raging battles to revisit these shores, and look at the menacing storms, of a controversial region that has for several years been the theatre of tensions , whose failings economy is felt by the resilient population. This work is a collection of postcards on a journey from which he sends us visual fragments bearing detailed captions. Most of the images show us a road or the sea, inviting us to follow his improvised travels, where he plans to return over the next three years. It is a neglected region, nonetheless at the heart of major political issues. It is this complex reality that Mathias Depardon has captured with acute words and melancholy images.
Laurence Cornet
Mathias Depardon born in 1980 in France. Mathias was raised between the south east of France, Belgium and the US. After studying Social Communication and Sociology in Brussels, Mathias briefly joined the Belgian national newspaper Le Soir before devoting himself to reportage and feature work. Mathias was until recently part of the emerging talent at Getty Reportage. He is now a contributing photographer at Getty Images. He won the Bourse du Talent in 2011 for his reportage ” Beyond The Border”. His photographs are included in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
