Blue Week

I went to spend time with elderly people living with Alzheimer’s disease in specialized units at nursing homes. I knew that the moments we spent together would be quickly forgotten by them. Yet I have rarely felt so useful—useful for listening to their little songs, for accepting their unfinished sentences, for being, if only for a moment, their connection to the present, for wiping their runny noses, and for embracing their overflowing love, fear, and emptiness.

In this space-time, it is the daily commemoration of a bygone era. Fragments of the past intrude on the present. Happy memories resurface from time to time. Painful memories resurface regularly. Loud, uninhibited outbursts of grief sometimes mingle with the TV show that everyone hears but no one is really watching. More often than not, it is anxiety that keeps us company.

These haunting memories show up at the same time every day. Despite the passing decades, they haven’t aged a bit. Their helpless hosts live with them as best they can.

The routine here is out of sync.
Absurd, harsh, and tender.

Alzheimer's is like a free-dive into vulnerability.

“Houses are like people—they have their age, their wear and tear, their quirks. Or rather, no: it is people who are like houses, with their basements, their attics, their walls, and, sometimes, such bright windows overlooking such beautiful gardens.”

Christian Bobin

These words resonated with me as I worked on editing this residency journal. The portraits it contains are of the residents of the Saint-Albert nursing home in Auchy-les-Hesdin. They are the result of a week-long immersion at this facility in December 2022, at the invitation of the Institut pour la photographie and the Pas-de-Calais Department.

Each session began with a question that I posed to the residents: “What would you do tomorrow if a miracle pill allowed you to regain your physical and mental well-being and you had to leave here?”

This question, which for me was merely a pretext, was easy for some and difficult for others. The answers I received are echoes of lives already lived, whose vivid memories are fading, at a stage in life when our ego weakens to make way for the deepest essence of humanity—its fragility and its ability to let go.

I did not wish to transcribe exactly either the answers or the deeply personal stories that were shared with me. Yet they are there, implied, humble and discreet. I tiptoed into each room with my camera. Echoing the words of Christian Bobin, my aim was precisely to capture—behind the formal facade of the nursing home—the soul and heart of the home that each person has been, and will always be.