Photographs taken by Philip, Laureen, Ichem, Sylvie, Zahia, Kelthoume, Jean-Marie, Herve, Catherine, Delphine, nadia Laila, Jean-Pierre et Eddy à Givors and Julia, Sonia, Odile, Olivier, Francis, Oussama, Patrick, Rosa, Salia, Eloa, Stéphane and Patricia in Strasbourg.
Creation time led over two weeks, from October 07 to October 17, 2024 in Strasbourg then in Givors.
With Laureen, coordinator of the Mutual Aid Group La Main sur le Cœur in Givors & Maxime Hoffner, coordinator of the GEM Aube in Strasbourg.
Collective work carried by Stimultania.
Project designed and implemented within the framework ofBetween images, a national program of transmission and photographic practice workshops developed by the Diagonal network with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and in partnership with ADAGP.
Supported by the European Community of Alsace and the gîte An olive tree in the stars.
“When is Dorian coming back?”
A year after his first artist/public creative residency with the GEM Dawn in Strasbourg and the GEM Hand on heart In Givors, Dorian Teti continues his project with the members of the two GEMs. As part of the program Between images of the Diagonal Network.
Since the announcement of his arrival, members have barely hidden their impatience to welcome the photographer back.
This year, he plans to work not on objects but on the theme of portraiture.
“What is the image of GEM? In a group photo, do we all find ourselves there? What interactions do we have when we pose together? What does it say?” So many questions that Dorian asks the participants during these two weeks of creation.
In Givors, the fears of posing in front of the lens are palpable. Philippe is stressed on this cloudy Monday morning: he doesn't like having his photo taken. However, he decides to play along during duo shots with Dorian. As the morning goes on, he relaxes, he even forgets to smoke his cigarette! Kelthoume, who initially refused to participate in the project, arrives one morning full of joy to take pictures.
In the afternoon, there are more participants. Group photos are taken to meet in a different way, to let go of the group, to exchange and to unite.
The weather is good at the beginning of the week in Givors, we take advantage of it to use the gardens of Maison du Fleuve or the quays of the Rhône as backdrops. We even discover places that we had never seen before!
To the rhythm of Hervé humming Aznavour, the participants take their place in front of the lens, strike a pose, then leave the frame or take someone else's place by adopting the same posture.
Dorian calls out to Kelthoume: “Do you mind if we swap clothes? I’ll wear your cardigan and you’ll wear my jacket?” By swapping clothes or lending glasses or a necklace, we lend and leave a part of ourselves to the other. “Isn’t he funny like that?” Kelthoume laughs as he faces Dorian in his wool cardigan.
Little by little, we even let ourselves go into confidences. Nadia tells us about her life in Morocco, in Italy and now here, in Givors. Jean-Marie lends Dorian his necklace and his ring which he never leaves and tells us about his journey to quit smoking and lose weight.
After exchanging his t-shirt and accessories with Jean-Marie, Dorian is surprised: one and the other merge, mix. It is almost difficult to know who is who. At the end of the week, the group has learned to become one.
Anaïs Mougin, cultural mediator in Givors
In Strasbourg, the group takes over the GEM Aube premises, climbs on tables and chairs. The poses follow one another, strange and incongruous, even in the adjacent car park. There, Olivier deploys a camouflage fatigues found in the Stimultania stock outside. Sonia slips behind, only hinting at the shape of her face and hands. Then the group moves and a strange queue is improvised at the foot of a pillar. Patricia, Odile and Julia, in single file, move slowly while Francis, Olivier and Dorian photograph them. Inside, Stéphane promises that tomorrow yes, he will be in the photos, today he can't, he doesn't have a trimmed beard.
Maïté Smerz, Cultural Mediator in Strasbourg
Born in 1983, Dorian Teti lives in Lannion. “Having graduated from ENS Louis-Lumière in 2011 and having worked for nearly ten years in the field of professional photographic retouching, I am now developing an artistic work on the relationships between intimacy, individual and collective memory. Through games of reappropriation, photographic associations and self-portraits, I first worked on self-representations and the expression of heritage and a shared history, particularly at the family level. From the beginning, I have considered photography as documentation (possibly fictional), ready to be manipulated and diverted by the use of retouching, omnipresent in my work. For three years, I have combined this photographic work with a practice of ceramics. These two aspects of my work (photographic and volume) now nourish each other, because I reflect together on the materiality of images and the surface of the volumes created. These constant back and forths between the space of reality and that of the image particularly interest me, insofar as they allow us to shape the links between the authentic and the false, between the original and the copy, between reality and its double.”