Frédérique Bretin

Space is the conceptual framework of my photographic research. I define it as made up by anything that enters in my field of vision, be it places or objects. It is the porous field in which all stories are encapsulated and buried: personal, collective, or Historical. I see it as a successive stacking of constructions, erasures and concealments. This is why I think of it as hinging on three dimensions.
First, there is the surface – a blank space, an empty page on which the setting is laid out.
Then, the setting is made out of constructions and layouts, of all sorts of objects both natural and derived from human activity, and also contains the events that occur within it. On a time scale, it abides, transforms, disappears, or another succeeds it.
Lastly, invisible depth is what contains the stories, the memory of old settings buried beneath the surface. It archives the layered strata of time, the past events that weave together the present.

Constructions, erasures, burying and concealments come in succession. Thanks to this perpetual motion, I think of each space as both polysemous and polymorphous matter, capable of producing a diverse range of visual perceptions. A space that is conceived according to this surface/setting/depth principle enables one to examine what remains of the events that occur in these places. It leads us to ask ourselves how they influence the way we perceive the world. Photography that imitates visual perception shapes our understanding of the world, and both produce their own visions.