Jacqueline Salmon / Jean-Christophe Bailly
Photographer Jacqueline Salmon has always found in cities and their architecture material for developing photographic reflections. Thus, beneath the enigmatic title 42.84 km2 Under the Sky lies the ambitious project of attempting to describe a city. This project took shape over several years in the city of Toulon: the 42.84 km2 in question representing the city’s surface area. How to represent a city is the question Jacqueline Salmon posed. This book answers it by bringing together as many photographic essays as a city illustrates its diversity. This “miscellany” book therefore contains:
– A collection of portraits of Toulon’s inhabitants, forming a frieze ranging from a newborn to an elderly person, spanning all stages of life and representing diverse national and social groups.
– Groups of photographs centered around iconic architectural landmarks: a hospital, museums, the port, etc.
– Collections representing the spirit and history of a city: rugby ball collections, prison records, sailors’ pom-poms, and other insignia.
– Narratives: about festivals, nuclear submarines, fishermen, etc.
At the photographer’s invitation, Jean-Christophe Bailly spent several days wandering through Toulon, bringing the city to life through his writer’s eyes. He returned from this stay with a substantial text on Toulon, which will offer a complementary perspective to this ambitious project. Shorter texts by Bailly will also open each of the main sections compiled by Jacqueline Salmon.
42.84 km2 sous le ciel, 22 x 27 cm, 256 pages, paperback with flaps, 350 full-color reproductions Graphic design: L’atelier d’édition
«La ville entière et tous ceux qui la peuplent, tous les objets et tous les signes qui la racontent à elle-même et à ceux qui passent, voilà quel aura été le matériau de Jacqueline Salmon pendant des mois et des mois…»
Jean-Christophe Bailly
