ACTION WILL FOLLOW VISION « N°12 »
2024
40 x 60 cm, Dodeka Inkjet on silver paper, framed
Edition of 3
This series was born of the discovery of the slide collection of a couple of retired amateur mycologists, Émile and Jocelyne Valobonsi, whose archive was donated with a second-hand Kodak Carousel camera purchased by Maya Rochat. Linked to the Société de Mycologie de Bevaix, the couple spent several decades photographing and cataloguing species of flowers and fungi in Switzerland.
So what to do with this archive, and how not to let it fall into oblivion?
Maya Rochat's answer to this question is a pictorial one. She chose to sublimate these images by experimenting with the materiality of the surface of the slides. By working on the film, using cleaning sprays in particular, she transforms these once innocuous visuals into spectacular works of art. New patterns emerge, revealing invisible structures and changing colours.
In the course of this chemical transformation, a dialogue is established between appearance and disappearance. New patterns appear on flowers that are on the verge of extinction, just as they do on a photographic medium that is also in the process of disappearing. The burnt tones and images altered by organic forms evoke the disappearance of our ecosystems.
Once transformed, the negative of these images is then printed by Maya Rochat on metallised paper. The shine and effects of the print can only be perceived with an active gaze on the print, offering an experience of seeing that cannot be reproduced online via a screen. This silver paper, which is no longer produced and also disappears, also evokes the silver iodide used in the silver photographic process.
This series was shown at the Château de Gruyère as part of the Action will follow vision exhibition in summer 2024.
The prints are printed in Berlin and framed in Cully.
Published in series of 3. Pieces with cut-outs are unique.