LES FLEURS DU MAL - WORKSHOP

Gerard

Client: Ministère de l'Intérieur Français
Agency: Préface

I hold photographic technique and expressiveness professional workshops for prisoners in Arles prison. Initially we focused on what it means to be in prison, but over time the desire to think "form inside" is diminished and we decided to communicate with the "outside" without going through autobiography or realism. We then began to develop partnerships with other similar initiatives.

In 2015, to decorate a new collection of bags, we worked with the cooperative Rio Terà dei Pensieri, a production workshop in Venice's prison. And so was born "Les fleurs du mal", a sort of greenhouse garden that although imagined to be "only" applied art, has acquired an independent aesthetic life of its own.

This is the project that most affected men of Arles' photography course: here are projected personal taste and inclinations, color and composition testing, planning and - perhaps most importantly - the satisfaction of seeing one's creativity become an object: purse, scarves and whatnot else in the future.

In this garden of evil have taken roots and leaves flowers made of expectancy: the awaken dreams that give a meaning to the act of doing and become something tangible that weaves relationships.

The series has become part of the exhibition "De l'ombre à la lumiére" curated by Daniela Rosi - who's part with me and other creatives of Officina delle Nuvole Association - presented for the first time in Venice and awaiting to be moved in France to Nantes, Paris and Arles.

Karo

Cristophe

Jean-Paul

Thierry

Jacques

VISIT THESE GALLERIES TO KNOW HOW THINGS HAPPENED IN VENICE

the exhibition
the making of
the opening

WATCH THIS ENCHANTING VIDEO BY STEFANO ZAMPINI

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