Jardin d'essai

"Jardin d’essai" is a series of photos taken by Maude Grübel (*1980 in Munich) in Algiers between 2009 and 2014. The title is a reference to a botanical garden created in the Hamma district in 1832, during French colonization. The Franco-German photographer first visited the Algerian capital with a friend who was returning to his homeland after a ten-year absence. What had once been a familiar environment now felt alien to him and he was forced to face the idea that he no longer belonged in this city.

This feeling of alienation forms the thread running through Maude Grübel’s photographic exploration of Algiers which she treats as “unknown territory”. She combines empty streets and squares, parks, and landscapes with uncompromisingly poignant portraits to create an atmospheric snapshot of a city where time has stood still. Her photographs tread a fine line between documentary objectivity and poetic imagery. She explores the surfaces and structures of whitewashed façades, burnt woodlands and urban details in often fragmentary compositions, treating the relationship between subjective memory and collective history much like an archeology of the present day.
This gallery exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Institut Français.