Topographie de la disparition _2
Topographie de la disparition
The Mazzeri are dream hunters who live in Corsica. Their spirits venture out at night, in dreams, to hunt and kill animals that, once dead, reveal themselves to be incarnations of human souls. The Mazzeri possess psychic abilities that grant them privileged access to the Underworld, as well as unknown territories where they engage in symbolic battles. One of their weapons is the asphodel, a plant that blooms in spring and grows in rocky and sandy soil where other plants cannot survive. In Homer’s Odyssey, he describes the Meadow of Asphodel, a place in the afterlife covered with these flowers where certain dead souls reside; thus, the asphodel symbolizes the passage to the Underworld. It is the edge of the world, where the familiar landscape disappears to transform into something else, and it is this “something else” that Jean-Philippe Carré-Mattei seeks to depict in his work. His dark photographic montages of Corsica portray the world of the Mazzeri, this world where humans take on the characteristics of animals, these landscapes that remain inaccessible to ordinary mortals.
Topographie de la disparition
About the Artist
Jean-Philippe Carré-Mattei lives and works in Paris and Corsica.
Member of the France(s) Territoire Liquide collective.
Represented by Galerie Schumm-Braunstein, Paris.
Current thesis in anthropology of photography (Sorbonne).
Lecturer at the Université de Picardie (photography, art history) and at the École Supérieure des Arts et Techniques in Paris.