Following a burnout, the chef Julien Lasota, 32 years old, left the gastronomic world. While travelling, he rediscovered the pleasure of photography, which he had encountered as a child, and finally set up his own business in 2018. “I develop a sincere approach, sometimes raw, and often drawn from my dreams, from my emotions at the time. I try to keep an eternal beginner’s vision – naive and spontaneous,” he confides. Conceived this year, during lockdown, The Culture of boredom (La Culture de l’ennui in French) reads like a study of our daily life, deconstructed and undermined by the health crisis. “An exceptional event requires an exceptional reflection. The pandemic we have all gone through has given us empty time, not free time. There it was, my subject,” he says. Language, loneliness, nostalgia… Decorated in blue and orange tones, Julien Lasota’s images respond to each other and illustrate an indefinite wait, a feeling of isolation in an intimate and (too) familiar universe.
© Julien Lasota
