- Can you go back over your journey?
I was born (1988) and grew up in Provence and in the Southern Alps, where the watershed of the Durance and the Rhône meet, within the massifs of Alpilles, Ecrins, Queyras, Vercors and Dévoluy.
As a child, I was marked by numerous experiences and stories of climbing, ascents and bivouacs in the mountains, distant journeys and workshops. My parents were artisans and farmers.
After a long walk alone across the Alps just after I came of age, I made a series of photographic self-portraits in these landscapes. During these performances an intense sensation invades my body, as if dissolved in the space covered by the rocks, the ice, the beings that inhabit it. In the following years, I explored the path mainly by walking and terrestrial means, first with an initiatory journey departing from Gare de Lyon. On foot and by train to the distant lands of South Asia, the return via the steppes of Siberia two years during which the journey shaped me.
What followed were wanderings across Asia and Africa, where I developed several artistic projects guided by chance encounters in the landscape, which led me to the volcanic areas of Danakil, the Sahara, the Rwenzory massif (Congo/ Uganda). I produced several photographic series there, and explored other mediums such as painting and video.
After these long and distant projects, a closer page where the scale is reduced, a workshop on the edge of the forest in Avon, m opens up to what is there, which surrounds me on a daily basis. I spent several years traveling through the Fontainebleau Forest, where installations were born in the natural environment, shared during joint walks.
- When and how was this project born?
Recently, during a crossing of the Pyrenees, it was obvious to have this approach of sharing now, and to lead a group to survey the landscape, to spend time there together, to live it, to inhabit it, together.
“Traversée” unites this intention and my artistic approach. A deep desire to share these moments, to walk together in the landscape for a while, exchange there, receive and build relationships, observe it, let ourselves be invaded and listen together, how to be within the world.
- Where does your interest in walking come from?
Walking has always marked my daily life, whether from a few hours to several years, it constitutes the rhythm of my days, of my years. Its relief is a metaphor for our lives.
The landscape is the place where the walk unfolds, its ridges, its valleys, its chasms, its passes, its summits. Visible and invisible, it is the habitat and the mirror of our lives, it surpasses us, inspires us, possesses us.
- Do you offer walks in all seasons?
Each season opens a monthly cycle of unique walks through the landscapes of France, from the high passes of Queyras in summer, to the autumn lights of the Cévennes, or to wrap oneself in the forests of the high plateaux of Vercors in spring, until crossing the Fontainebleau massif or being carried away by the brilliance of the coves in winter.
The landscape and its inhabitants always have to tell us, each season is an opportunity to go walking.
The paths are possible for all ages and all levels. The necessary equipment varies, and you take the path with a light bag for nights in lodges, or a slightly heavier backpack for roaming during nights under the stars.
- How do you imagine your routes?
They are a line to be walked ephemerally. Anchored in the season, the route envelops the group who travels it, carrying a dialogue between surveyors and landscape.
The routes are shaped by the places they pass through. From a walk of a few hours to a journey lasting several days, walking invites you to yourself and especially to the encounters that the path offers us, an invitation to be in the world. Each route also invites the stripping that walking suggests, the bag on our back made up of only the necessary things.
A dialog with Margault Antonini, for Regain Magazine, may 2022.