Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine

‘The Sojourner’

Rooted in the ubiquitous metropolitan experience, the series ‘The Sojourner’ is much more than a reflection of a uniquely urban territory. This work, with it tissue of elements of different western cities, creates a visual dream narrative which centres on atmospheric objects, places and characters in a way that the City is converted into a simple metaphor for surroundings.

The basic material for the realisation of this series is the mystery and the powerful evocation that one can find in the ordinary, in that which one has dismissed. Objects that have not been used, empty places, one way streets, apparently busy people who remain lost in themselves, form the emotional background for Pujade-Lauraine's project.

Agitation and hope, solitude and alienation, paradoxically increase one's perception of surroundings, of the transitory nature of its presence. In this way ‘The Sojourner’ refers as much to the photographer as to the spectator, and to the constant desire to find a new way of contemplation.

Background

Paris, France 1981

Specialising in Philosophy at the University of the Sorbonne, he continued his studies at the National Superior School of Photography in Arlés, where he finished his degree in 2007. His work has been exhibited, with others, in Voies Off, at the Arlés festival, also in 2007. At the moment he lives and works in Paris.

His interest in photography focuses on the relationship between the surface of objects and the places which make up people's physical and material surroundings, and the sentiment which colours these elements. The work focuses on the central idea of the metropolis as the principal source of the visual model of contemporary culture.