Par delà la nuit (Beyond the Night), Sébastien Normand

Par delà la nuit (Beyond the Night) is a collection of photographs created by Sébastien Normand as part of his ongoing project Vérité en deça… et au-delà capturing the Pyrenees mountain range between France and the Iberian peninsula – a region where Normand has hiked since childhood and where he keeps going back to retrace his memories. His photographic research, set along the 430 km that stretch from the Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic Ocean, explores the wilderness of heights, reading and interpreting this territory through stories, documents and archive pictures.

Like a modern hunter-gatherer, Sébastien Normand uses long exposure times to capture the invisible whispers of the great heights, the dizziness of silence and the endless colours of the nights. Photography reflects the nodes and tangles of contemporary debates on the perception of nature. By challenging representations of the territory, it reveals its principles and character. With each shutter release, Normand challenges the possibilities of vision, matching the moment with the timing of dreams, and the image with the starry sky’s rhythmical trace. The Pyrenees are outlined by the full moon’s patient beams, or by inverted projections in cabins used as improvised pinhole cameras.

In search of the landscape’s identity, Par delà la nuit tells the story of an unknown world as it emerges from obscurity beyond the sleepless shadows, like a revelation.

Published by Départ Pour l’Image
Edition of 100
Softcover
40 pages
210 x 280 mm
ISBN 9782956110828