MONØkult Interview: Alice Legendre & Quentin Dève
Some encounters can be a chance for a trigger, the birth or maybe more of a catalyst for a common passion. This is what happened to Alice Legendre and Quentin Dève, a couple of Parisian photographers, who eventually ended up buying those analog cameras they’ve been thinking about without daring to when they met.
Describing the entry of — analog — photography in their life as “a great bliss”, something that is able to reveal the latent intimate; “this medium which best translates the moment, the marks of time and the sensitive approach that each of us has of its surroundings”, as Quentin says, has since been a beautiful opportunity to build and to show this new language of expression as a duet, where the displays exist through the eyes of each other.
This cohesive work, almost made with four eyes and hands, however tends to split its line in two different paths: Quentin working a lot on landscapes as ensembles, recognizing the omnipresence of themes of repetition, chance and absence in his work, while Alice is focalizing more on details, those of “real life, real people”, looking for something raw in photography. But sometimes, those malleable roles can reverse on their own, echoing each other’s vision, with this perpetual joint will to always keep a fierce spontaneity in their visual expression.
Both eager for reliefs and matter, for this good grime that all form this “greater presence” inherent to this format, they concede that monochrome, that adorn most of their pictures, “brings a particular dimension, like a paradox, a distancing accompanied by a peculiar heat, that allows to focus on the sound, the smell and the texture”. A meaning that is less obvious and can lead to more apprehensions and interpretations.
Something they are planning to execute hopefully soon in the small french village of Issy-L-Eveque, which is Alice’s grandmother’s hometown and whose her great-great-grandfather used to be mayor, where they want to develop a project lasting for a few days, documenting a given place, its people and their lives.
With also the desire and wish to take many more pictures — still, make books, and write.
Still seize the world in its rawness and frame it together.
