Photography is generally attributed to the ability to faithfully reproduce reality. From its recording qualities derive the most widespread uses of the medium: illustration, journalism, sciences, etc. Photography, an instrument of memory, comparison and knowledge sharing, also records our memories and signals, by this very fact, the passage of time; it has been part of our daily lives since its invention and digital technologies have increased its importance to the point of making it omnipresent.
Faced with the photographs of Laurence Leblanc, none of these statements seems so obvious. The author takes us to Africa, Cambodia, Brazil, Cuba. She makes us meet children, nuns, dancers. But we won’t know anything about them or the countries crossed. Because over the years and series, the photographer’s motivation is not to record to document but to grasp the invisible, which cannot be photographed: the imperceptible thread that binds humans, between them and between eras.
Wherever she goes, the photographer is. Laurence Leblanc permeates the place, goes to meet the inhabitants and lives with them. She questions, integrates, learns. Her stays are long-term and often renewed. The shots are done instinctively, subjective and benevolent, she «happs» with delicacy and without anything being premeditated. The emotion triggers the photographic act, the photographer collects.
Photography is generally attributed to the ability to faithfully reproduce reality. From its recording qualities derive the most widespread uses of the medium: illustration, journalism, sciences, etc. Photography, an instrument of memory, comparison and knowledge sharing, also records our memories and signals, by this very fact, the passage of time; it has been part of our daily lives since its invention and digital technologies have increased its importance to the point of making it omnipresent.
Faced with the photographs of Laurence Leblanc, none of these statements seems so obvious. The author takes us to Africa, Cambodia, Brazil, Cuba. She makes us meet children, nuns, dancers. But we won’t know anything about them or the countries crossed. Because over the years and series, the photographer’s motivation is not to record to document but to grasp the invisible, which cannot be photographed: the imperceptible thread that binds humans, between them and between eras.
Wherever she goes, the photographer is. Laurence Leblanc permeates the place, goes to meet the inhabitants and lives with them. She questions, integrates, learns. Her stays are long-term and often renewed. The shots are done instinctively, subjective and benevolent, she «happs» with delicacy and without anything being premeditated. The emotion triggers the photographic act, the photographer collects.
Back in the studio, time expands again. Faced with clichés, contact sheets, reading prints, the artist takes his time. A new impregnation, silent and lonely, begins. The photographic images that will represent the lived experience must know how to impose themselves to the photographer before being shared, provoke questioning, questioning and doubt.
Laurence Leblanc talks about capturing an energy and an inner feeling that would be common to all of us. It is a challenge because how to show the intangible? And yet. It is under this single prism and without complacency that the photographer applies her author’s gaze. The photographs that Laurence Leblanc chooses to exhibit are sensitive echoes, links between the world, people and things.
For this exhibition, the hanging deliberately mixes different series, from Rithy, Chéa, Kim Sour and the others [2003] to the unpublished Du soin [2021] because for Laurence Leblanc, identifying sets, establishing a chronology or determining themes makes no sense. His photograph is a constantly renewed attempt to keep alive and perceptible what is invisible to us but still remains, despite everything: the tenuous, fragile but so essential links… that bind us.
Curator: Sylvain Besson, Nicéphore Niépce Museum The museum would like to thank the Société des amis du musée Nicéphore Niépce and the Canson Society. The prints of the exhibition were made by laboratory of the Nicéphore Niépce museum on paper Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique II 310 g and Canson Infinity Rag Photographique 210 g.