This week, the redaction chose the works of two of our French readers. The first one, Alys Thomas, shares her love for Asia, and the second one, Lauria Marie, denounces the pressures in our society through staged images. These are our two weekly readers picks.
Alys Thomas
Alys Thomas is a Franco-British photographer who started her carrer in China and Tailand. She came back to France carrying with her her love for the Asian continent. The pictures we chose are part of a new project created in Japan. ‘They all represent moments of pause, spent waiting, ‘empty’ moments, with no particular meaning, but always elegant and poetic’, the photographer explains. And we discover a calm and still country. ‘It is soothing: we catch our breath, contemplating’ Alys concludes.
© Alys Thomas
Lauria Marie
‘Not comfortable with words, I feel better behind my camera’
Lauria Marie, the author of series Error 404, confesses. From organic images to cinematic pictures, the photographer loves sharing her opinions through staged settings. Here, for example, she displays ‘Mankind facing its own absurdity’, and, on a wider scale, the ‘bugs’ of a standardised and automated society. Lauria denounces ‘the acts against nature caused by pressure in our society’. A body, a car, nature, and her raw and surrealist vision make us question our realities. By dehumanising this woman, she invents a new visual language and breaks the codes. ‘We stop questioning sex, or her place in our society, but rather we focus on her actions: What is this body doing here? What is its story? Why does it act this way?’
© Lauria Marie