Mathieu Farcy

Born in 1985, Mathieu Farcy lives between Amiens and Lozère.

His work explores the concepts of collective action, social exclusion, and collaborative creation. He forms the duo PLY with the poet Perrine Le Querrec.

When I became photographer , I mentioned that I was working on a topic—about tourists at lookout points, about the workers at the Goodyear factory. Yet something wasn’t quite right—a grain of sand, a nagging discomfort. While writing I didn't feel at home in my own face , I realized: I didn’t want to work on it, but rather with it. The difference between the two approaches set me free, opened me up to new questions, and revealed horizons that had previously been blocked by an overly rigid view of my place.

All the work I have been doing since then is rooted in the human encounters , with the idea that the art is a way to take care on the other hand. Working with those who do not have access to the creation or culture, and work together to come up with images like amulets, in which one can tell one’s story. These works always walk a fine line, at the crossroads of each person’s desires.

Embracing this balanced approach allows for the creation of authentic works that convey stories and emotions.

I didn't feel at home in my own face is the first “faire-avec” project. Following this project, created with people whose faces have disappeared—I worked on the theme of skin with people confined in The Share of Fire . These two works explore the body’s inability to become a means of  encountering others and the world, and the images they produce seek to evoke a sense of these limitations and to transcend them. A third project centered on the body is in its early stages : Still Waters Run Deep . This work is based on imposed postures—whether consciously or unconsciously endured. How does the body bend under these constraints? What traces do they leave behind? And, above all, can the body reclaim its freedom—can it unfold?

Saints-Loups is part of the same line of inquiry, depicting a neighborhood alongside the people in the photographs, creating the images together based on everyone’s stories.

Projects created in collaboration with Perrine Le  Querrec , writer, — under the name of PLY  - also reflect a need to create collectively, far removed from the image of the solitary artist. Whether through collaborative work as a duo or through the exchange of archival images and texts, the works we create with PLY are resolutely focused on otherness.

This year, we are working with women who are violent, in order to The Amazons don't exist . This project, the winner of the BnF’s major commission, aims to create a visual representation of violent women: Yellow Vests, female boxers, female police officers, female offenders, female prisoners, and Black Bloc members. Indeed, when the topic of violence committed by women is raised, it is viewed as a dire warning of society’s descent into savagery—a taboo, a symbol of the “moral panic” that supposedly threatens our society. Yet, as historical studies show, violence committed by women has always existed. So, what is at stake in its invisibility and in its constant rediscovery?

For several years now, I have been working with others—whether on long-term or short-term projects—including fellow artists collaborating with me, a writer, as well as a prosthetist, a sound designer, prison guards, a psychiatrist, and a potter.

This diversity of perspectives is necessary for the emergence of a just voice, through an understanding of other languages and the complementary nature of other perspectives.