Panamera

In 2017, Swiss photographer Younès Klouche moved to Paris to develop his photography career, drawn in large parts by opportunities for commercial work; thus participating in the concentration and accumulation of talent and economic activities in large metropolitan areas. But he wasn’t fulfilled by spending all his time in creative studios in the city center so he began to explore the extended territory of Paris with his camera. It did not took him long to notice the many construction sites from the Grand Paris project, aiming to create a new, colossal and fully functioning Metropolis tied together by futuristic public transportation lines. These efforts echoed past major urban projects, by Haussmann in the 19th century or later with the Boulevard Périphérique or the Grands Ensembles in the 20th century. Looking back these utopia driven endeavours seem to share a common goal; to control, funnel and eventually tame the true strength of Paris which is its density, its abundance, its uncontrollable vitality. Klouche’s work Panamera shows how successive utopian projects are linked by a vision of a grand, social reality which invariably turns out to be a fiction.