Living, a collection of Times
Living in Marseilles November 2003 - July 2007
Laurent Malone (3 volumes)
In November 2003, wanting to set up my studio at the heart of the ongoing transformation of the city of Marseille, I negotiate with the urban development authority Euromediterranée to gain access to a piece of land on Avenue Roger Salengro, in the third district. Still awaiting development at the time, it is a former industrial site of which nothing remains but a concrete slab and a shed isolated from the rest of the city by a fence. At the center of this piece of land, I place a stone, symbol of my discreet presence in the spot, and point of reference from which I photograph the surrounding space.
From November 2003 to June 2007, I document all the details of life in this land on borrowed time, from the weeds growing in the fractured concrete, to the evolution of life in the shed occupied by homeless people who have made it their living space and resistance center. I share their daily life, support them in their dealings with the bureaucracy, help them to find housing. Unobtrusively I capture, as a witness, the gestures of these men who demonstrate a certain art for living in this spot through their everyday actions: eating, dressing, sleeping, drinking, washing, keeping warm, gardening, pacing, etc. To be clear about it: beyond exhaustion, beyond appearances, here in this place the subjects have traced the course of a life.
Laurent Malone
Living in Marseilles November 2003 - July 2007 consists of 3 volumes :
| Volume 1 : pacing up and down, drinking, sleeping 168 pages / isbn : 978-2-9515909-1-5 / 29€ |
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| Volume 2 : working in the garden, washing, eating 168 pages / isbn : 978-2-9515909-4-6 / 29€ |
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| Volume 3 : praying, receiving, protecting onself, dressing oneself 128 pages / isbn : 978-2-9515909-5-3 / 29€ |
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Box containing 3 volumes : 60€ |
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Testing ourselves through exposure to territories that don't appear on the control screen of the West. Seeking our past and our future there, starting notably with that faraway country made up of our words, texts bequeathed or forgotten, fragments of buried stories. Tracking the human, his wounds and desires, those steps and respirations that photographs deposit over the course of walks, meetings, exchanges, silences. Our words and our glances seek a path and cross the paths of other men, weaving the space of our own lives. To live here. In Marseille under a shed, in Istanbul in a shantytown, in Paris on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin. And then some other place, without rest.
Laurent Malone and Sébastien Thiery
