The urban landscape of the Parisian suburb is changing : the “Grand Paris Express” project and its four brand new metro lines has started. At the heart of this colossal initiative is a more symbolic line than the others : line 15.
It will connect the cardinal points of the “petite couronne” allowing commutes throughout the suburb without passing by Paris. With the construction of the metro it is the architectural identity of the suburb that is evolving. Growing up in the Hauts-de-Seine, I sometimes noticed a dislike for the periphery. But we, as “banlieusards”, find a certain charm to this urban landscape made of high towers, pavilions and industrial wastelands, our suburb has some character.
Roaming around the future locations of the stations on line 15, I’m trying to establish a photographic body of these changing territories and to offer them, through the use of film photography, an immutability in time so that is fixed in the duration as on the film, the face of a singular suburb.
Born in 1996 near Paris, I studied photography at Speos Paris after three years spent learning law and political science in a French university. I was drawn to the medium by a desire to understand, study, collect and capture the essence of my surroundings. Nurtured by the American iconography of colors, travel, suburb, industrial landscapes and everyday scenes, I developed a particular interest for landscapes, especially the man-altered ones. I thus started methodically compiling photographs of a mundane yet fascinating reality, inspired by the New Topographics icons and aesthetics. In my work I collect pieces of social and natural territories in constant evolution and I explore the interaction between humain and his environment.
© text and pictures by Clara Berbessou
