Les gestes du commencement, residency , 2024

In the spring of 2024, I was invited to a two-month residency during The Biennale de l’Image Possible in Liège. A group of artists got the opportunity to occupy the enormous building of Les Chiroux, a former library space of 7,000 square meters. For 50 years, it had been a refuge for a vast array of theoretical and empirical knowledge, preserved in books, audiovisual documents, and archives. While a significant portion of this material was relocated to a new, modern building, much of it was deemed obsolete and left to gather dust in the now eerily empty spaces. What had once been a vibrant center of communal activity had become a dormant colossus, filled with ghosts of the past.

It was in a former office space that I decided to set up my studio. As I roamed the building in search of furniture for my workspace, I stumbled upon a beautiful '70s archival cabinet filled with discarded files. Underneath a pile of old papers lay a strange and flashy-looking orange object. I removed the papers and discovered three metallic bookends, the type used in vertical arranging systems.

On my way back to the studio, I came across a wooden chest filled with alphabetically arranged book titles. I randomly opened a drawer and pulled out a card. It read: “Les gestes du commencement” by Jean Pierre Otte.”

I carried the file and orange bookends to my studio and began a conversation that lasted for the entire duration of my residency.

The resulting series revolves around those three bookends, with my creative process at its core. Through simple visual interventions and a tactile approach to photography, I explored the transformative potential of color, shape, and materials, revealing the many facets of these seemingly trivial objects. I also took advantage of the studio's unique characteristics, letting the sun play a significant role in shaping my images.