What to do when you reach the end of the world? In the middle of the Bering Strait lies the island of Little Diomede, an isthmus like a melting pot of icy, wild, mythological dreams and a source of burning desires, whose apparent silence eclipses the very real rumbling of the issues surrounding it. The arrival in this muffled setting is in itself a test of strength where it is impossible to escape the vertigo of our own fragility. The profile of an isolated fisherman invites us to explore, beyond the surface, the intertwining of narrative layers of which this place seems to be the sole repository. The cradle of ancestral migratory routes, this ‘gateway to humanity’ and those who inhabit it are the descendants of an ancient collective memory that makes us lose our most intimate certainties, giving way to a form of introspective solitude. Faced with the peaceful immensity of eternal landscapes, we are then driven, by an inexorable power, to return to our origins, which we sense outline the foundations of a possible future.

From this land between past and present, reality and imagination, we await an answer. For Elliott Verdier, the visceral desire to venture as far as possible is part of this quest, to the point of confronting the edge of the physical world.In this, at first glance, untouched wilderness, man has endeavoured to make his presence felt. He has drawn a political border that separates two empires, the United States and Russia. He has also drawn a line of date, so that the day is not the same on either side of this demarcation. Yet, faced with the infinite, with this setting that seems frozen and unchanging, as if imbued with age-old gravity, the reality of time and space disappears to make way for chimeras. Silhouettes emerge from the void, the landforms metamorphose with the storms, the shapes stretch, distend, until they split in two.For opposite the American Little Diomede is Big Diomede, its Russian big sister, a silent ‘other’ that we cannot ignore because it is so close, but from which we could not be further away because it is so inaccessible. The island haunts the horizon, like the reminiscences of a loved and familiar being. The omnipresence of its imposing contours evokes the mirages of a dreamt-of tomorrow, but forever unattainable.The images of Tomorrow's Gone touch our limits. Beneath the stillness, the calm and the serenity, we sense the deadly violence of the effects of global warming, armed conflicts, the frantic race of capitalism devouring languages and civilisations to the bone. The snow-covered houses seem to be holding their breath in anticipation of a denouement, whatever it may be. Under these conditions, it is impossible to turn our backs on the mysteries that accompany the search for our own place, on the melancholy of our finitude. Yet confronting it is a necessity, both collective and intimate, the only way to design new beginnings.

‍

With the support of Centre national des arts plastiques (National Centre for Visual Arts), France.

If travelers are quick to marvel at unknown landscapes, like new realms of enchantment, what about their inhabitants? At what point does the landscape cease to be merely a backdrop? At what moment do we become one with our environment? With (Re)read the Landscape, I explore different practices of walking in natural environments as various ways to produce alternative representations of a territory. This can take the form of an invitation to a local resident to show me a walk they particularly cherish. My perspective intertwines with the route of the guest and the movement of our shared walk. In the act of capturing images, I activate a "style of attention enriched by the living beyond itself: one that deems it worthy of inquiry and rich in meanings," to borrow the words of philosopher Baptiste Morizot in his work "Ways of Being Alive". This can also manifest through my participation in choreographic walks, such as "assombramentos" proposed during the DETER festival by choreographer Ametonyo Silva, who seeks to provoke "appearances" in the hope of re-enchanting our gaze. I also engage in in-situ performances initiated by other artists, such as those of "The Real Story of the False River", as part of the research laboratory "Being(s) situated #2" operated by Le Dancing CDCN (Dijon, France), under the direction of choreographers Laurent Pichaud and DD Dorvillier. In this way, I aim to create a corpus that blends different regimes of imagery, with movement as a common thread, serving as clues to question the notion of landscape and renew its representations.

This project borrows one of cinema's most common codes: the field/counter-field. It seems to me that photography all too rarely bends to this injunction of dialogue, of face to face. In this work, I wanted to confront my own vision with the blindness of my models. Blind people came to pose for me in my photo studio. They agreed to give me their image. In return, I asked them to create an image on the same medium I was using, large-format photographic film (18x13 cm). Each image became a place of passage, a relay to the sensory limits of the other. The only instruction was: how would you respond to the image I've just taken of you? How do you perceive me? The tools used (Braille punch, roulette wheel, engraving tools, etc.) allowed them to feel the relief of their drawing. I also offered them phosphorescent make-up, warning them that the film would remember any light passed over its surface. So there are shapes and figures drawn directly with light, but also traces of the touch of those who see with their fingers. Some have touched my face, others have preferred to imagine it. Still others drew patterns, abstract or concrete, or even words to counterpoint what they had felt knowing that a lens was pointed at them. By photographing these people and collecting their testimonies of a different vision, I sought a possible point of contact between light and darkness. Photographic film, a fragile but sensual surface with an unparalleled capacity for absorption, seemed to me to be the ideal place. Here, the developed images bear as much witness to a search for presence as they become engraved atlases of a longer time: that of the transition from volume to surface. ‘Pellicules aveugles’ is an installation where photography meets sculpture. Raised on hammered metal pedestals, all the images - mine, taken with a camera, and those engraved by the blind - are intended to be presented in the same way, in the same format, on the same material - photographic film. I felt it necessary to give them a similar status in order to diffract the apprehension of presence: retinal visions and interior glances weave together to create a new kind of rebus. This is where the need for a sculptural installation comes in: to counterbalance the blind spot that this work seeks to portray with a profusion of images presented as sculptures. A forest of moiré images, with metal pedestals forming an organic extension.

In ‘Nigredo’, Constantin Schlachter combines painting with his original practice, photography. In the privacy of his studio, he paints small formats (4x5 inches) in watercolor on paper. These images are then used as negatives and printed in the darkroom on chromogenic paper. In this process, the artist reverses the color values and densities of his paintings.

‍

The printing process produces a positive from a negative, here darkness becomes light and vice versa. In the same way, red becomes cyan, green-magenta and yellow-blue. This technique also allowed him to create without the camera. From now on, the light would freeze the pigments of the paint directly onto the photographic paper, using a color enlarger.

‍

The title of this series comes from alchemy. It refers to the first stage of the Great Work, also known as the ‘Work in Black’. For the alchemist, this involves confronting the Shadow within himself, by looking inwards. In this way, he gains access to his inner gold, his soul. Constantin Schlachter interprets this phase of the alchemical quest as a necessary letting go, through which he opens a window onto his spirit, to visit this inner landscape.

‍

With their telluric and cosmic aspects, these prints invite the viewer into a meditative and contemplative state, where everyone is free to project their own inner world. This invitation is extended by a spontaneous hanging, in which the emotive images interact with each other according to the artist’s sensibility.

‍

‘We all dream of travelling through the universe, but isn’t the universe within us?’ This was the question that Novalis used to sum up his definition of infinity in 1798.

Les Ombres de nos constellations is a project that began in Paris in 2023. Using a 3D printer, he designed a film holder that is used as a petri dish. This object enables him to replace the photographic negative with a solution of agar on a glass plate, a ‘bio-negative’ that is single-use because it is cleansed after use. Over a period of ten days, the bacteria grown on this agar will multiply until they die.

This device enables him to make chromogenic prints of various micro-organisms. Without a camera, this technique directly prints the contours of an object by projection onto the photosensitive surface. The process lends itself perfectly to conveying the ephemerality and constant evolution of life. Each print is unique, revealing the poetry of a world invisible to the naked eye.

Constantin Schlachter’s approach is based on a reanimation of nature. He invites us to rethink our relationship with it, and to recognize its creativity, agentivity and intelligence. It was while photographing the landscape in his first book (La Trajectoire du Gyrovague, 2016) that he became aware of the intrinsic creative potential of the world around us.

Thus, in Les Ombres de nos constellations, he chose to photograph in collaboration with bacteria, letting them express themselves freely, with no further intervention on his part other than their collection and cultivation. In this work, he has brought together the different expressions of the bacteria present on the human body and passed on to us their involuntary art.

Moreover, the scientific aspect that his approach may suggest is simply a gateway to bring the viewer into contact with the microcosm. In this context, it is more a question of bacteria fascinating us and asking us questions, rather than providing us with explanations. They are not the subject of the work; they create the work.

Since his photographic series Les Ombres de nos constellations (2023), Constantin Schlachter has placed bacteria at the heart of the image, seeking to poetically embrace their diverse expressions. This approach has been facilitated by the creation of his own working tool, a 3D-printed ‘film holder - petri dish’. This device makes it possible to produce chromogenic prints of bacteria in a darkroom, using an enlarger. The bacteria are collected in situ, then grown on glass plates in agar-agar. The plates are then cleaned, leaving only the single print as a record of this involuntary art, a testament to the ephemeral nature of life.

With Polyphonies of the Invisible, the aim is to give voice to the many microscopic actors of life in a forest. Through the exchanges that bacteria allow within and between species, they fundamentally sustain life, in the image of mycorrhizal networks. We can imagine these dialogues, melodies and dissonances intertwining, creating polyphonies invisible to the naked eye. The initial research in this dossier consists of a collection of plants taken from around the artist’s place of residence, in order to quickly test the viability of his device on the plant world. These images will not form part of the final project.

The artist’s initial research explored the bacteria present on the human body. This led to discussions with Patrice Le Pape, Professor of Mycology and Parasitology and Director of UR1155-Iicimed at Nantes University Hospital. Discussions with the professor focused on the role of culture substrates, such as agar, in the proliferation of micro-organisms. Each bacterium has its preferred substrate. It can be transparent, chromogenic or phosphorescent. The artist will be working in collaboration with the scientist to complete this project in 2025.

The research setting will be the forest of Fontainebleau, designated as an ‘artistic reserve’ by imperial decree on 13 April 1861, with the support of the painter Théodore Rousseau and the Barbizon school. The project echoed their aesthetic considerations, extending them to the world of the invisible. It is with them that the artist will create images and reconstitute the microscopic partition of this territory. The aim will be to isolate different bacteria and melodies, and also to take account of the symbioses that occur between them. To achieve this, Constantin Schlachter will be taking samples and prints from the end of winter 2025. The samples will be taken from leaves, roots and branches of different tree species, as well as flowers, mosses and fungi.

Polyphonies of the Invisible is intended as a scientific and aesthetic re-enchantment. It raises awareness of the importance and beauty of micro-organisms in ecosystems and in maintaining biodiversity. Bacteria, fungi and other invisible organisms are essential players in the cycle of life, playing a part in decomposition, soil regeneration and the regulation of air and water quality. The aim of this project is to place them at the heart of the creative process, as composers of the opus incertum that is life.