function : map reader / adventure teller
i read in the maps, guided by the represented elements, i interpret them.
explore. travel.
alert and interested in what surrounds me. based on journeys, on roamings, immediate experiences of places. protocol or fate. a practice that inspired my projects.
my practice, continual round trip between outside-inside. the immediate, the field and the residence, effervescent place of exchange. laboratory where we can interact, connect, collaborate, share.
importance of the time spent for the research. as to walk a territory without knowing what it contains, what we are going to discover. on the lookout for a surprise, an unexpected, in search of ordinary madnesses, anomalies, irregularities.
i emit hypotheses, i investigate. discover / give the hi-story of places.
exploration and experience are essential. i go on reconnaissance, take action. a learning, a knowledge by the use. interpretations, intuitions, reflections, thus uncertainties open to possible.
interested in urban space, in transformation, in processing. fascination of this violence, perverse excitement of the disaster.
examine new forms, new productions of territories, new landscapes (manchester, nicosia, lens).
the rust-belt, the geographical place of the project, marked by the industrial decline. the landscape still wears stigmas: ruins, derelicts lands, overgrown properties..
i am attracted by places in the course of transformation or suspended.
Aurélie Le Maître. Explorer A
direction
a territory, its crossing. the rust belt, post-industrial area, in decline.
i want in this page to speak about places, through stories of exploration. urban travels, movements, i walk with a view, i centre, zoom in/out. i go on reconnaissance, criss-cross the territory, practise it. illustrated notes, summary extracts, brief reports. my remarks, indications are a kind of explanation, comment coming from feelings, thoughts, experiences.
behind this objective, it gives pause to see, to read, chosen places. i observe, interpret, question situations. inventory of places. a disaster, fragile, uneven landscape which reveals its past present future history.
08-22-13
heading for chicago, the bus stops in buffalo. border city, i spend two days there.
plan in hand i discover the city center. gap site, unused lands, the city is moth eaten, full of holes. inoccuped, free ground, result of a population divided by two since 1970 and half of its commercial and industrial area lost.
i go along streets. vacant, available spaces, parking lots prosper in the city. car park, paying void. enclosed wastelands with well drawn lines. surface of asphalt repainted in black. as new. in the entrance the same codes, a name, a sign, exhibited prices. cars are ranked, lined up next to the others. a cabin stands guard.
where we are nothing without a car, the parking lot is a fundamental element in the city’s life, it is more profitable to demolish than to build. mobility and in-dependence of its inhabitants. the car modified the landscape, construction for and around.
i build up a collection of photography. multiplication, demonstration of the north american overstating. i list, inventory the public parking lots. typology. the captured places find their identity, position in the serie. impermanent places, i show the images, the slides.
25-08-13
chicago, the loop.
i had had knowledge of a failed project, the chicago spire, residential skyscraper. 2008 recession, the construction is suspended, then abandoned 2 years later.
it would have become the tallest skyscraper of the continent. expression of the modern civilization, symbol of power, fulfillment. architectural battle, race for the height. they build, raise, consolidate their image. manly competitions to whom will have the biggest.
the site is walled in, inaccessible. in the middle, a hole. result of the underground phase: a circular cofferdam, with a 104 feet diameter and 78 feet depth, building’s foundation. numerous projects are cancelled. future monuments, emblem of an economy but also a symptom of a crisis of civilization.
i accompany the photography of a recording, it questions the place in what it is today but also what he it was and will be. legend, indication.
photography sidonie rocher
09-04-13
henry and clara ford home. symbol of a model born in detroit and its limits.
09-06-13
northland center. first modern suburban shopping mall built in the united states in 1954. foray into the suburbs. we roll out the express ways, set the parking spaces. past symbol of suburbanism, in decline, ravaged by time, in a suburb that sprawl always more. competition and migration. the buildings disappear all around, cars are missing.
09-11-13
i cross a street, change of landscape. spaces unequally occupied. the plan empties, linear defect, discontinuity in the organization of the structure. a mobile population, little attached to the place where they live. we move. every man for himself.
dislocation
relocation
dispersal
the city eats into the territory. a forest grows inside. houses fall. tabula rasa. surface of ground revealed, damaged roads, we amass, piles up. dense vegetation, open territory. tracks are going to fade little by little, healing, repossession of the places.
09-15-13
border. connection and separation, fracture and transition, outside and inside, confinement and protection. here it’s real, material. we isolate ourselves. alter road. line of division, ethnic and economic, some of the poorest districts of detroit are located on one side while those of the other one are rich. stunning contrast.
i go along the boundary. we mark our territory, block the way. i capture these demonstrations, make a series of photographies.
road ends
no outlet
road closed
dead end
09-18-13
a vast, moth-eaten, enclosed territory. in a city organized for the car, absent in public transportation, to move without vehicles is a trial. new segregation. the question of the mobility becomes a social question. alternative route, they invent a new network. shortcuts, desire paths, tracks left by man on the ground where he walked.
i practise these paths, collect photos during my excursions. archives, i keep records of it.
© 2013 by les trois exploratrices​​