Les Corps élastiques

Through photography, Lucie Pastureau seeks to capture the subtle upheavals that course through individuals, to represent what is not visible. She views this medium as an encounter with the other and is interested in periods of transition and everyday vulnerabilities. The artist views her practice as a form of research, a poetic language: she refines words, manipulates images, arranges and categorizes them, and explores their narrative potential…  

After working for many years on adolescence, and then drawing on her experience with pregnancy, she launched the project a year ago Les Corps élastiques, with support from the Institut pour la photographie, exploring the body in transformation.

By engaging with other bodies—whether uninhibited or constrained—each with its own unique journey, she crafts a collective narrative driven by a spirit of emancipation, reappropriation, and reconciliation. For the photographer, the encounters and portraits that punctuate this narrative serve as a means of bringing to light the complexity stemming from social pressures, standardization, and stereotypes.

Within the exhibition, texts—written or read by the artist (sound composition by Léonie Young & Olivier Desmulliez)—accompany the photographs. They open up a new dimension: that of a poetic language in which images, voices, and intimate narratives intertwine.

“Some grow up; their bodies stretch out—it’s as if they want to break free—they spit in the face of childhood and rush headlong into adolescence. Sometimes they starve it to curb its outpouring and distortion, thereby hastening their own fall. Others, trapped and constrained within their bodies, try to come to terms with their stiffness, to lighten their load, and to tame the pain. And then there are those who become “them” (and vice versa), who have always had skin that itches because it doesn’t conform to their inner form. And still others, inhabited for several months by a being that resembles them. Some are in a state of fusion, like nesting dolls; for others, it’s impossible even to imagine, and their bodies try to make them forget it.” 

Lucie Pastureau

↘︎ Mentions : Les Corps élastiques received support from the Hauts-de-France Region's PRAC (Projects with Artistic and Cultural Impact) program