Silent World, 2008-2012

"Silent World" was awarded by the Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation prize, and received a Grant from the CICRP center Marseille, European city of Culture 2013. The silence of the world, like a quotation, is suddenly endowed with an oppressive eloquence. Small intrusions are the true sparks here, because their disconcerting presence disrupts the majestic calm of the streets and squares. Are the latter guilty or victims? The fate that governs these shots in a tangible way is not the result of decisions taken by metaphysical powers, but stems uniquely from the imagination of the two creators of these photos, Lucie & Simon. Although they consciously and intelligently stage the principle of the “déjà-vu”, they nevertheless brilliantly include observers in their game and transform them into co-creators of their images. They undermine the idea that the photographic image is a duplicate of the visible world or a “language without code” (Roland Barhtes), an image that is at least « natural » at the moment of its creation. They endow their photographs with an abundance of unsettling codes, of the most diverse persuasions and origins, particularly those arising from other images. However, these codes don’t focus the images. They serve instead to incite observers to fill them with language of their own experience and their own imagination. Klaus Honnef, Art critic and curator co-organizer of Kassel DOCUMENTA V and VI extract from « Lucie & Simon, The incertitude of being » Actes sud editions, 2010.