beaux livres : photo, architecture, art

Anne-Marie Proulx constructed her photography book by following the journey of the protagonist in Anne Hébert’s novel Le premier jardin (1988). She draws freely on the novel’s depiction of a New World city as seen through the eyes of a theater actress haunted by the women who came before her, as well as the roles she herself has played throughout her career and personal life.

Le premier jardin is a land on which sits a city that is never named, that is almost invisible, but in which there are the beginnings of stories, pieces of truth and fiction as intangible as the light that falls on a wall, on the surface of the water, or on trees in bloom. Through the details of textures, lights, and a life that touches the streets and buildings, the city reveals itself as a character, like a woman’s body. In this garden planted behind the grand facades lie dormant invasive roles, ephemeral, seasonal, and enduring lives.

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