
Les enfants du palais sous la mer
- Publisher
- Mörel Books
- Year
- 2024
- Specifications
- Softcover
17 x 24 cm
~44 pages
~250 copies
Series: MÖREL X MEP Studio #9
Published in conjunction with exhibition at Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris (12.06.2024 – 14.07.2024)
Until the 1970s, the commune of Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez in the Vendée had more than a dozen holiday centres which were the result of a political desire to take in children from the 'red suburbs'--communist towns in the periphery of Paris--after the Second World War. Focusing on one of these centres, the Houilles holiday camp which was abandoned in 2018, the artist found this research site to be a fertile ground for connecting multiple narratives, from the memory of the buildings to the past cult of outdoor leisure activities and the wild reappropriation of the site by illicit night-time activities. The two-stage project led the artist to carry out in-depth research combining urban sociology, history, and territorial policy with personal accounts through the collection of postcards, photographs, and letters. Illuminating the space with coloured gels, the artist delivers images that are situated somewhere between documentary and forensic photography, with elements of installation and sculpture. The images show a maze of objects of all kinds--furniture, toys, etc.--which seem to have taken over the space, evoking a dystopian world in which human civilisation ends up irretrievably submerged underwater.