The meeting happened on a summer day in Tangiers. And then the years passed. But the blue, resembling silence, remains. Inhabited. Full. Tahar Ben Jelloun’s words coexist with Thomas Dhellemmes’ images taken on his blue, melancholic, uncertain days. He began to write poems without a specific project in mind. Just writing, under the open sky, on the sea, by a cross. He knew nothing about the places, dates or countries Thomas had crossed in moments plucked from the past with extreme softness.
What we perceive: traces, faraway cities, calm waters, a family, a sleeping child, a naked woman, nature, veiled windows … This is about time and memory. 1984-2017. Thomas Dhellemmes travels and saves his impressions of the world from oblivion. Floating. Fragile. Sentimental. His Polaroid photographs heal us. They calm, they relieve. From violence, from death.
What we feel : peace, or at least a respite.
Tahar Ben Jelloun adds his sublime chant to these dreams. First with words that evoke images of waves, earthly depths or mountain peaks. A silhouette under a driving rain or phantoms in makeshift robes wander the night to make us believe they exist. He writes: summer mornings are sleepy-eyed. Tahar Ben Jelloun’s music recounts open, dreamy stories of the wind, of love and ancestors, tales in a few lines, or his thoughts. Night is omnipresent in his phrases. Night contrasted with light. (…)
Jour bleu is a majestic, poetic voyage that sways between glances as it moves towards beauty. It is like a Turner painting that has escaped from our interior museum with the endless dreams that will follow it.
Julie Estève, writer.
Texts by Tahar Ben Jelloun, winner of the Goncourt Prize for his novel La Nuit Sacrée (The Sacred Night).
JOUR BLEU
2019
Format 26 cm x 21 cm
152 pages
French
49 €
Édition Cercles d’Art
ISBN: 978-2-7022-11021
«Forgotten vegetables, because of their shapes and taste are elementary and yet very complex. They bear within them the blessing of our grandmothers’ remedies.
They are important and wise. Yet they are perishable.
Like my Polarïds, they dissapear. There is an aspect of obliteration. Nowadays, people tasks a multitude of digital images beacause there are no limits. They don’t need to think before taking the shot, but in this case it’s the opposite of a superficial snap shot image. There’s a complex and slow working process during wich time is important. I had to set up everything before taking each shot. My images are not seen on a computer but in a book, to be studied and understood as a whole.»
Thomas Dhellemmes
Extract from the book "Légumineux" - Interview by Caroline Tossan
Texts by Antoine Jacobsohn, director of the King’s Vegetable Gardens at the Versailles landscape school and Armand Arnal, the chef at La Chassagnette, Arles.
LÉGUMINEUX
2015
Format 23 cm x 29 cm
99 pages
French & English
69 €
Éditions de l’Atelier Mai 98
ISBN 978-2-9552254