The Tumbleweeds2 series began in early 2024 during a 15,000 km road trip across the American West that I documented through photography. The journey prompted a reflection on the founding myths of the United States and the traumas that have shaped its history: the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the civil rights struggle of African Americans, and structural injustice deeply inscribed in both the territory and the collective psyche. Through this journey I also discovered major Indigenous artists, notably T.C. Cannon and Fritz Scholder, whose works prompted a rethinking of identity, its representation, and its erasure.

Upon returning to France in mid-2024, my initial work of correcting and adjusting the photos gradually shifted, almost imperceptibly, toward a process of deconstruction and fragmentation of the visual material, within a context shaped by the American presidential campaign. My move to Washington, coinciding with Trump’s inauguration, intensified this dynamic. Graphic interventions — marks, hatches — sometimes executed after printing, introduced a deferred temporality, disrupting the notion of a stabilized image. These successive alterations reveal fractures, both in collective history and in my personal experience, moving the work from representation toward testimony.

This logic extends to the material and spatial choices. Print formats, variations in scale, framing choices, and scenography are not peripheral decisions, but rather integral components of my artistic process.

Technique: Photography, photochrom, drawings, video
Date: 2024-2025