Benoît Fournier

Copyright Benoit Fournier
© All rights reserved.

Benoît

Fournier

Nipei Yuxii | 2017-2021

Indigenous people Yawanawá and Huni Kuin appear on leaves thanks to the chlorophyll of plants found in the Amazon rainforest. The chlorophyll process is an organic alternative photography process. The prints are bleached by sunlight directly onto the surface of leaves using a positive. The work creates a subjective memory of the place and its inhabitants by poetically establishing a relationship between people and the nature that surrounds them. They have millennial knowledge of plants. The plants are sacred and that´s a vision that has been lost in the West but remains in the native cultures. Therefore, the indigenous people cultivate and share a complex “cosmovision”: a view of the universe which embodies the spiritual, social, medical and cultural spheres. Unfortunately, this traditional knowledge is currently threatened and unrecognized. The leaves operate as a trigger that releases memories and the individuality is present in the result: each leaf is unique and ephemere, as are the characters who appear thanks to the chlorophyll. The process is slow and the photographic support is fragile, just like the rhythm of life. The result depends on how the leaf reacts to the sunlight. Therefore, contact with nature is essential. In this work, nature acts as a co-author.

Benoît Fournier

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Copyright Benoit Fournier
© All rights reserved.