Before hydroelectricity development and tourism activities, Maurienne territories were very early exploited. Roads of the Mont-Cenis have crossed the Alps since Hannibal times. Over the years, railroad pioneers experienced different tracks in that area. Today a new passage is being dug, instrument of flows economy and completion of an old ambition. The drilling of the Lyon-Turin tunnel crystallizes the relationship with time disparities. A coveted time, whose incompressibility tries to be abolished by an obstinate search for speed. This is a Trans-European essential link for some while its legitimacy is also reprobated.
As ephemeral compromise between anthropic interests and natural constraints, landscapes are also the support of economic convulsions. Sometimes shaped as a technical object, they meet a need. As a technical object too, they can be planned to be obsolesced… To what extent can one consider that technique makes the world more or less fit to live in ? Is there any disconnection between economic time and natural human timeframe ? What is the threshold making a resilient environment permanently modified and hostile ? Without offering direct answers, these issues are covered throughout this series. The approaches vary from poetic evocation to documentary investigation.
After a Master in Landscape-Urbanism-Architecture where Charles Bouchaïb discovered the french photographic mission of the DATAR, he continue in self-learning the discovery of the photography. He explore the possibilities of the famous documentary style and get some exhibitions and publications : Fotofilmic, Ain’t Bab, Urbanautica Institute. In 2019 he was finalist of “Prix Maison Blanche” in Marseille. He share his artist activity about the contemporary landscape, with commissions for architects.
© text and pictures by Charles Bouchaïb
