Preface by Frédéric Mitterand
Writings by Colette, Anaïs Nin, Edith Wharton, Nicole de Pontcharra, Nedjma.
Since 1921, Morocco has been a privileged territory for photographers. Their widely differing approaches have given a new vision of a Morocco that is dreamt, fantasized or plagued by social realities and identity. With this book, Maroc, un temps suspendu, photographer FLORE continues her autobiographical quest, a time of remembrance that had already taken her to Indochina, where her grandparents lived, in her book Lointains Souvenirs (Ed. Contrejour), about the childhood of Marguerite Duras. After Egypt in her “Sabah el Nour” series, the artist here once again evokes memories of a vagabond childhood, the wonder of discovering Morocco during a “road trip”, a long solo mother-daughter crossing of the country in the 1970s. The bittersweet color of the images whispers to us that time escapes us, memories fade and those we love die. The spiritual granddaughter of Gabriel Veyre and Eugène Delacroix, in an eternal Morocco, FLORE once again blends a post-classical aesthetic, thanks to a technique that borrows a pigment patina from the past, with a very contemporary approach and framing. Sometimes, only photographs remain to remind us of the poetry of happy days. Short excerpts from texts by Colette, Anaïs Nin, Edith Wharton, Nicole de Pontcharra and Nedjma respond freely to the images, amplifying the viewer’s gaze and giving this book its originality.
A Franco-Spanish photographer, FLORE currently lives and works in Paris. She is represented by several galleries, her work is the subject of monographic exhibitions around the world, and many of her works are included in public and private collections. Her previous book Lointains Souvenirs, published by Éditions Contrejour, poetic variations on Marguerite Duras’s Indochinese youth, was a commercial success and received rave reviews. FLORE is a laureate of the Prix de Photographie de l’académie des Beaux-Arts in 2019.
FLORE has just been awarded the Prix HiP 2019 in the “Cultures and Travel” category!
