Julien Coquentin – Dead zone

September 23, 2015 · by Cristian Bassa · in Collaborations, Submissions, Surreal

“The dead zone – I like to make long series, spread over months, years. This allows me to better comprehend my subject and to apprehend it over the years, discovering step by step what I wanted to say in the beginning, like a developing bath. And then the long series reveals many more, smaller, more precise details, more specific in every case.

This had already been the case with “Early Sunday Morning” (2010-2012) which consisted of a single body of work, becoming coherent over the months, finally being closed by the publication of a book. Yet countless short series of photographic narratives suggested themselves post-publication. Because the French countryside is where I lived since 2013 containing so many memories, I wanted to include my childhood reminiscences, that enclosed memory in this landscape, now a dead zone and yet so invasive.

I naturally thought of a black cube, because it seemed to me that it would be the simplest form to make, and then it came to refer itself to the black box, the dark room, also to this comic strip entitled “Fever in Urbicand” from Schuiten & Peeters. I proceeded by trial and error, finally choosing a wooden architecture, with 1-meter sides, light and strong. I take it with me in my wandering, following the footsteps of my childhood.

This project entitled “the dead zone” is an extension of a long series I’ve been working on now for over two years (black seasons), a necessary extension to express precisely the heart of this work. The cube does represents the child I was and my history, giving me the opportunity to give back to the past what belongs to the past.” – Julien Coquentin