Jean-François Spricigo
Project Description
“The silent contemplation of a landscape is enough to close the mouth to desire.” Jean Grenier
I went to the island of Reunion, the island of Mayotte, and Guyana for the French Ministry of Culture. There, I discovered the territory with local agents of the Conservatoire du Littoral.
My ambition was to go in search of natural beauty, to question our relationship with the wild.
As a Belgian-Italian living in France, having always worked in the margins, finding my place more within the natural and animal world than in political debates, my approach has no militant vocation.
It is a question of continuing, on the borders of these isolated territories, the thread of my exploration of the “wild” world, to testify of this nature, how does it live or survive, according to which modalities?
What links this coastline to the others already explored?
Do we finally have a horizon to share?
By that which surrounds us in the literal sense can we envisage the virtues of a common destiny?
An island brings a healthy humility, the awareness of being a fragment of a whole.
At the same time abstract and manifest, inaccessible while giving a direction, the horizon connects us while escaping semantic reductions. Privileged access to the immemorial breath of the world: its point of view has never changed and belongs to nobody.
In the open sea, the sky embraces us, without distinction, since ever.
Bio
Frequently humorous human, doted with a sense of wonder, a tendency towards enthusiasm and passably impatient. He launches himself into dizzying heights as a pretext for taking flight (and is still learning how to land). Each day, he discovers anew the intensity of tranquility, to better welcome the necessary storms that illuminate the night. Immense gratitude to the generous outstretched hands, quoted in a jumble as each one implicitly solicits the others : Jacques Brel, Henry David Thoreau, David Lynch, Sielwolf, Pierre Desproges, Friedrich Nietzsche, Osamu Tezuka, ABBA, Eric Baret, Franz Schubert, Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Will Ferrel, Stanley Kubrick, Marguerite Kardos, Itsuo Tsuda, Nirvana, Alfred Schnittke, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Iris and Hiko. Jean-François Spricigo creates photography, video, writes, and is involved in the performing arts. He is an associate artist of the CentQuatre-Paris for visual arts and theater, and his photographic work is represented in galleries ― by Camera Obscura in Paris, Louis Stern in Los Angeles and the A Galerie in Brussels. His latest creations have led him to collaborate with the actress Anna Mouglalis, the singers : Philippe Jaroussky, Albin de la Simone, Dominique A, the pianist Alexandre Tharaud, the novelist Philippe Grimbert and the choreographer Josef Nadj. Jean-François loves Nature and animals unconditionally, their tenderness inspiring him to more serenely accept the fickleness of the species to which he belongs.
Honourable Mention
Series Title
Horizon
Website
Category
Hariban Award 2023