03 Feb Reminences

The Photo series-01 among the two by Elodie Guignard during the 8th Episode of Uronto Residential Art Exchange Program at Dubolhati Palace in Naogaon, Rajshahi, BD.

This series is about the women who have, over time, crossed this territory, this village and these ruins.

Elodie came to Dubolhati to make portraits of women, questioning herself about the relationship of the women of the village to the territory of Dubolhati on which they live. She wanted to talk about the women who lived there in the past, the women who live here today, and create stories of her own with the stories collected.

Walking around the village, soon she made connections with villagers, but However, confronted herself with a difficulty too: the women of the village, for the most part, categorically refused to be photographed and to show their faces. In order to avoid this constraint, she photographed them from behind, showing only their long loose hair and clothes.

Then she superimposed these women from behind in the ruins of the Dubolhati palace. The decoration is inlaid on their backs, in their hair, giving these portraits a ghostly and strange look.
It is a layers of stories about the present absence of those women in the Palace/Rajbari.

The final display was done with the photographs stitched in a red sari. This was a collaborative work with the village women and the artist asked the village women to sew these photos on a piece of cut sari, in order to keep their own imprint in an object made with their hands.

A projection was done too near this work to connect her second work at the same place which again address the female but in a context of the queen and the reality to her stories.

Elodie comes from France, with a study background in Photography. She has developed a style of photographic research on human being, body, territory and the way people interact with spaces they are living in. Her work questions the feminine, the relationship with nature, the links that women have with a territory. Elodie is represented by the Hans Lucas agency in Paris.

Other work by Artist Elodie Guignard:
THE CROWN