beaux livres : photo, architecture, art

“Between 2016 and 2020, I scoured schools and military establishments in the Ardennes region to photograph teenagers from all walks of life: middle schools in more or less affluent city centers, technical or agricultural high schools on the outskirts, barracks, vocational rehabilitation centers, it didn’t matter, because taking stock of the kids in the region seemed to me to be the best way to materialize a shadow. I hadn’t yet understood that the shadow was the opposite of the image and that coming back with a few glances, sometimes a pout, an Ardennes pout, was not enough.

The journeys of the hero of Charleville then became an obsession, more precisely a battle, yes, something like that: opposing images to shadows, the absurdity on which to let off steam, beating up the horizon and breaking its teeth, questioning its ridge line, using it to strangle, gagging oneself, silencing others, until dizzy, it was necessary to leave for that, (one must always leave) I left. “

Yann Datessen thus traveled the world in the footsteps of Arthur Rimbaud, rediscovering the places the poet had visited, those where he lived until his tragic return to Marseille. Belgium, the Saint-Gothard Pass, London, Italy, Ethiopia, become the stage where the artist weaves landscapes, portraits, situations to rediscover more than the ghost of the brilliant poet, his vision.

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