To me, the couple has always been an endless mystery, a curiosity as strange as it is fascinating: a convergence of egos, a charming sanctuary, an arena for bickering, a window onto the cosmos. What binds a couple together, creating that unique alchemy? And why is it an experience that almost everyone wishes to embark upon?
This project was born one day in spring, whilst rays of gentle sunshine sparkled on the bistro tables. From a café terrace, I observed dreamily the loving couples walking hand in hand, on the forecourt of the Comédie Française. Then an idea came to me, half-serious, half-crazy: what if I were to intrude into the lives of couples in love?
So I approach strangers, asking them to invite me into their daily lives, to offer me a slice of their intimacy, for a shared artistic experience: a breakfast or dinner between the three of us. In a restaurant or at their home.
Like a private detective and a performer at the same time, I carry out an investigation full of humorous situations, to better disarm my interlocutors. I stage myself with these couples, whilst capturing their complicity, their friction, their desire, their cracks and their unique recipe for happiness as a couple.
In this series, currently in progress, I blend photography, sound, writing and video, combining these mediums.
Texts will appear on my images in the form of calligraphy created in the moment. And sometimes faces or objects will become plain backgrounds to leave space for words.
I am the one who gets a taste of their own medicine, the observer being observed, an unmasked voyeur, a troublemaker, a killjoy, a feelings smuggler, an anthropologist of kisses: for so many snapshots, samples, shared glances and laughter. I tease, I’m shaking things, reversing roles, questioning emotions. I enjoy encounters, chance, and fate.
This series is an ode to our fascination with couples. Always different, always renewed. A universal experience, at the same time common and mysterious, ordinary and extraordinary.
A theme constantly revisited by theatre and cinema, I find myself wondering, beneath the surface, whether there isn’t a French comedy of love? A way, uniquely our own, of seducing and loving.
By arranging for couples to meet in romantic or typically Parisian settings, I start with the clichés, I play and shake them, to move beyond. And perhaps release a magic potion!
Whether an extension or a catharsis of my own story, this project ultimately expresses only one truth: my own, reflected in the lives of others.
