WALLED OUT / MINITOPIA - Edith Roux
Fascinée par les espaces en mutation, Edith Roux pratique une photographie hybride, entre documentaire et fiction. Virtuels et réels en même temps, les sites que nous révèlent ses images ont trait aux deux thèmes majeurs qui la préoccupent : la surveillance et le tiers paysage. Elle sait parler de choses graves et inquiétantes, mais toujours avec poésie.
La Galerie Dix9 présente deux séries photographiques qui traduisent des préoccupations qui se rejoignent. Walled Out est un travail sur les gated communities, ces enclaves résidentielles sécurisées , nouvelle forme d’urbanisme péri - urbain qui se développe dans les classes moyennes aux Etats-Unis. Construction d’un horizon bas, personnage de dos au premier plan, pourtant l’image dépasse la peinture romantique puisque le personnage est renvoyé à sa propre extériorité. No Peeping, vidéo de type burlesque, dénonce le climat crée par ces enclaves.
En contrepoint de ces espaces surveillés, la série Minitopia révèle des espaces qui échappent à tout contrôle. Ce sont des plantes qui poussent sauvagement à l’interstice des murs et des trottoirs. Edith Roux magnifie ces mini-paysages en jouant sur les changements d’échelle, introduisant des saynètes utopiques jouées par des personnages lilliputiens.
English version
Edith Roux is fascinated with mutating areas, and her phtography is hybrid ; both documentary and fiction . The places shown are real and virtual at the same time and are related to both issues that preoccupy this artist : surveillance and the wastelands. Edith Roux speaks of things both serious and worrying, but she always does with a touch of poetry.
The two different photographic series displayed simultaneously center around issues that are related.
Walled Out is a work on gated communities. These securised residential enclaves are a new form of peri-urban area which has developed within American middle class. A low horizon is set and a person in front has her back turned to the viewer, but this image goes beyond romantic painting as this person is faced with her own estrangement. No Peeping is a burlesque video that denounces the atmosphere created by these enclaves.As a conterpoint to these watched over areas, the Minitopia series reveals areas that escape all control. Here are plants that grow wild in wall and sidewalk cracks. Edith Roux magnifies these mini-landscapes through play with a change in scale. She adds utopic playlet acted by lilliputian characters.
Born in 1963, Edith Roux has a degree from the National School of Photography in Arles. Two monographs have been published : Euroland (with a text by Guy Tortosa and Gilles Clément) and Dreamscape (with a text by Paul Ardenne) Her works have become part of several public and private collections. She is currently working on a commision for the Photographic Landscape Observatory (for the Hainaut Crossborder National Park).