Bénédicte Blondeau: Ce qu’il reste (en)
By Miriam Edmunds
As a child, I slept in an ocean. My mother had painted the wall of my bedroom a light blue colour and brought the water to life with black fish and seaweed. This underwater world accompanied me for years.
Today, as an adult, water and the animals living in it still fascinate me. These days, I own aquariums that cast a spell over me. They captivate my gaze and my attention. I can sit in front of them for hours. They calm me down.
I feel the same calming effect when I look at the exhibition Ce qu’il reste by Bénédicte Blondeau. Understandably, I was magically drawn to her photographs of jellyfish. The sea creatures are beautifully printed in black and white and on glossy paper. The photography reflects the light in the exhibition space like the reflection on the water surface.
Interspersed among the images of jellyfish are nighttime city scapes shot from a bird’s-eye view. The network of lights is reminiscent of the tentacles of the animals. The photographs radiate something magical and, thanks to their placement in space, seem as natural as the sea creatures juxtaposed with them.
Blondeau contrasts man-made architecture with diverse landscapes, including rocks, valleys and bodies of water. The spaces photographed are transitional: waiting rooms and corridors. These photographs do not seem dreary, but venerable. They also radiate an almost tangible calm.
The photographer writes: “Photography itself is often considered as the medium of the ephemeral. It shows us a moment that undeniably belongs to the past, reveals our passages in a constantly changing reality, like a scar recalling our memories: a metaphor of the fragility of human existence.” Blondeau’s photography invites us on a journey through time and space, whereby photography always represents the past. Photography opens windows into the past, showing us the transience of life and culture. Blondeau underlines this idea by means of a photograph of a bandaged head of a sculpture. It recalls the art of the Greeks and Romans and thus our Western heritage, which seems to fall apart in Blondeau’s photograph. Even the heritage of our ancient civilisations is not protected from decay. On the other hand, there are the natural landscapes and forms that have evolved and formed over millions of years. They have an air of eternity about them.
The photographs in the exhibition Ce qu’il reste have in common that they show spaces where man is absent, although he could be present. So what remains when the human being is taken out of the picture? Tranquillity. Even the city views are photographed in such a way that they appear calm. Nothing can be felt of the inhabitants, the cars, the life in the streets.
Blondeau’s photographs seem enraptured, regardless of the subject. They invite us to dive deep into natural and man-made forms and into the feeling of relaxation and serenity that accompanies them.
The exhibition Ce qu’il reste is presented at Photoforum Pasquart from 12 September to 21 November 2021.
Miriam Edmunds is an historian specialising in photography. She is research associate at Photoforum Pasquart.
