“No added sugar”, “low sodium”, “grain-fed”, “no corn syrup”, “organically grown”, “grass -fed”, “full of protein”, “no fishy smell when cooking”, “old style”, “fat free”, “no artificial flavors or preservatives”, “no concentrate”, “rich in omega 3”… hence the poetry of fridges…
After “In Your Room” and “On your Roof”, here is another part of the third leg of my image research on intimacy in large cities…
This time I’ve chosen to focus my investigation on two cities close to my heart: Paris and New York. I put on my journalist boots and my sociologist glasses and I stepped out with three questions in mind:
What do fridges murmur about the food choices of city dwellers? Can we read a culture by looking at a shelf in their refrigerators? Does the non-stop rhythm of the cities induce new food behaviors?
My approach was quite simple: make an appointment for a portrait shoot and once the shoot is over, and without my subject being aware of my project, ask them permission to complete the human portrait with a portrait of their refrigerator…. Oddly enough, for the first time in three years of shooting this project, I’ve been refused to access numerous fridges. As if the mayonnaise and the chicken leftovers found in a fridge could be more intimate than a bedroom.
From there, the next question quickly arose: Could the fridge be the mirror of the soul?
I left my boots and documentary questionnaires to knock on the doors of my subject’s “cold universes” with no prejudices, just to be amazed by everything I might find inside… Dolls, drugs, silk and cashmere, bizarre vegetables, series of water bottles, yellow post-its and other love letters… A surprising voyage…
On my host’s side, the experience was somewhat painful: “hold on, I need to organize / clean / throw away”, “Oh my gosh, a picture of my fridge? But I haven’t gone grocery shopping and I haven’t had the time to clean up this weekend…”, and sometimes disturbing, “My fridge? But what’s the interest? Really, you photographers, you don’t know what else to come up with, do you? Sometimes funny “Can you see my future in my fridge?”
After photographing almost forty portraits of New Yorkers and Parisians, I dream of extending the adventure to another 19 megacities in the world, to complete the map of a playful and poetic universe that murmurs endlessly the secrets of the citizens of the world.
Stéphanie de Rougé
Stéphanie de Rougé has lived in New York since 2006 working in documentary, fine art and architectural photography. She works as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, and on assignment for magazines and interior designers. Since 2010, she joined the faculty of The International Center of Photography where she teaches digital photography.
