The Bois de Vincennes is the largest green space in the city of Paris. In 1852, Napoleon transformed it into a park and changed the appearance of the forest located in the eastern part of the French capital. The predominant area of trees in the city rise here, District XII. In 1934, in the very heart of the park, Le Grand Rocher was created, an artificial and hollow rock of 65 meters high, built for one of the many international exhibitions that tried to show the cultural richness of the French colonial empire. The peculiar nature of the rock is to shelter its infinite unexplored interior, a territory that man cannot step on. In this project, the Bois of Vincennes and Le Grand Rocher dialogue until they find themselves in the same physical space, the objective of which is to establish a visual reflection that shows how the passage of time can build an ephemeral cartography, of an alterable character, since nature is, per se, changing. The objective of carrying out a documentation work that records the memory of this place, results in a portrait that is both heterogeneous but continuous of the forest, which at the same time includes a multi-layered introspection on its memory.
A selection of the images from the series are shown below (click to view image at full size / original format).
THE BOOK
All this research is recorded in the book Cartographie Éphémère, which has just been published by Editorial Ediciones Posibles, after receiving a publishing grant from the Government of Navarre and the Huarte Contemporary Art Centre.
Mendia Echeverria (1989). Navarrese photographer based in Paris. She has a Degree in Photography, a Master’s Degree in Artistic Photography and Contemporary Narratives and a PhD candidate in Education. Her rich exhibition career, both individually and collectively, began in 2013 with Ofelia at the SegoviaFOTO festival (Segovia), PHOTOESPAÑA festival (Madrid), Lacus in Tabacalera (Madrid), Antrum in UPNA (Pamplona), Visibles in Cité Internationale installation (Paris), Cartographie Éphémère in Art-Hop-Polis (Paris), Instant Life in Gallery Camara Oscura (Madrid), Cartographie Éphémère in Gallery Nadar (Tourcoing, France) and continues to the present day; Likewise, she has received numerous relevant awards and scholarships, such as Rencontres Photos Amis Musée Albert-Kahn in Paris, Fuga Award at the Vilassart de Dalt Revela-T Festival, Grants for the Publication of the Huarte Contemporary Art Centre and the Government of Navarra, selected for the Órbitas Festival in Jaen, PhotonFestival portfolio review selection in Valencia, Young Art Encounters Prize 2019 of the Institute of Youth in Navarre and has carried out artistic residencies in Madrid with Cantera Tabacalera (2018), in Paris with the Formarte Grant (2019), in Bordeaux with Zebra3 at Fabrique Pola (2020) and in Alicante with A quemarropa, among others.
Her works establish a link between the reality of the landscape and the imagined one. These works focus on specific issues that determine our existence. This results in her being able to easily imagine her own interpretation without being hampered by historical reality. By examining ambiguity and origin through repetitions and variations, she attempts to increase the dynamics between audience and author. Her series are being confronted as aesthetically resilient material, thematically interrelated with memory and projection. By questioning the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, she investigates her own dynamics, based on the assumptions of what the environment means to us.
Website: mendiaecheverria.com
Instagram: @mendiaecheverria
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Mendia Echeverria
