Matthias Cheval

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Thoughts On Emptiness (2024)

En/Fr


I began exploring the outskirts of Paris because I was interested in the notion of emptiness — the emptiness of the periphery in contrast to the center, the attention given to one and not the other.
Focusing mainly on the northeastern part of the city, I discovered places whose existence I had always assumed, but which I had never actually visited. These places that are part of what we call the Paris area, had never truly sparked my interest before then — nor that of other Parisians around me.

On foot or on my bike, I tried to maintain a state of receptiveness to what I encountered there, to see whether my mental state could, consciously or not, become intertwined with a certain configuration of space.

Gradually, this exploration turned into a reflection on what the city chooses to showcase — and what it prefers to relegate to places where we usually don’t look.
My interest in these overlooked, sometimes run-down areas on the margins of the urban landscape led me to question my own repressions — all those parts of myself that I reject because they clash with the image I have of who I am. I wanted to draw a connection between these two processes: both confronted me with things I had, until then, refused to see.