Off season
Summer will come back
« Off season » was built during one-year of life in the French city of Le Havre, Normandy. It attempted to show the particular ambiance of this place : Le Havre-beach in winter. This is a huge beach where different items are brought together: walkers, dogs, strollers, unfolded huts, folded huts, boats, seagulls. A beach. Inside the city. The summer vocation is set aside. Summer clues are still there and remind of times past. Summer will come back. City engines are working on the beach, making the vestiges of storm disappear. City employees are assembling and disassembling the huts – enjoying the power of deciding summer.
Half urban – half liquid decor
Beyond geographical consideration, these images are questioning the poetical relations between bodies and environment. These tiny bodies on the huge beach. They are dumped in a half-urban half-liquid setting. Are they walking on the sky or on a big mirror ? They are like ants. Black in an ocean of grey. The grey of the sea but also like the concrete of the city. Bodies are sometimes missing from the landscape, then urban items are on the foreground. Garbage cans, wooden slats, lampposts. They are creating strange compositions. This all one needed to be irresistibly attracted to walk on the beach.
Agathe Martinod
