I travel the world looking for abandoned places.Today, I have visited more than one thousands of them in more than forty countries on four continents. With time, my interest has focused on those reclaimed by Nature as it appeared to...
Read More I travel the world looking for abandoned places.
Today, I have visited more than one thousands of them in more than forty countries on four continents.
With time, my interest has focused on those reclaimed by Nature as it appeared to be a visually strong subject but also because it carries an important message. This topic naturally imposed itself on me because of the ecological consciousness that moves me since my youngest age.
In March 2018, I released the book Naturalia and currently work on volume II.
In June 2018, I quit my job in finance to fully dedicate myself to this project.
This work has been featured in prestigious paper publications (Der Spiegel, Corriere della Sera…) as well as on prestigious web platforms (National Geographic, Smithsonian, Lonely Planet…).
It has been part of many group shows across the world (Paris, Rome, Athens…) as well as several solo shows in Paris, the main one being in Paris 20th district City Hall “Salon of Honor”.
These photographs ask a fundamental question: that of the place of Man on Earth and his relationship with Nature. Far from being pessimistic, and at a time when Man’s domination of Nature has never been so extreme, they aim to wake our consciousness.
In addition to the strong philosophical aspect, these images carry a clear aesthetics. It is poetic, even magic, to see Nature retaking what used to be hers, reintegrating through broken windows, cracks on the walls, spaces built by Man and then neglected, until sometimes guzzling them up entirely.
The series Naturalia: Chronicles of Contemporary Ruins tells a story. That of the progression of Nature, from the infiltration in abandoned places, through the moment where she grows inside them, until their collapse. Burial comes next along with the disappearance of all traces of Man.
Man builds, Man abandons. Every time for his own peculiar reasons. Nature does not care about those reasons. But one thing is for sure, when Man leaves, She comes back.
In her inexorable progression, She starts infiltrating the insides of a Croatian castle (Picture 1) or a Belgian greenhouse (2). Then, She grows in a Cuban theater (3) before filling up all the space of an Italian Church (4).
The next step? Collapse and burial.
When Nature and Time take back what Man abandoned, what will be left of our civilization?
