Salon Approche 3rd edition

Galerie Eric Mouchet is pleased to participate for the third time to a ppr oc he, an innovative salon devoted to experimentation of the photographic medium, with the exhibition Escape from Paradise by artist Benoît Jeannet, laureate of the Foam Award.

Benoît Jeannet sees his work as a polymorphic approach to photography. He diverts original applications by using an experimental approach to the photographic act. He considers his darkroom and photography as a malleable tool, mixing media and building a specic visual language to express the movements of the world he bears witness to. Benoît Jeannet is presenting the Escape from Paradise series at a ppr oc he, a research project in which the Pacific is transformed into an iconography observation lab.

Escape from Paradise is a study of Hawaiian iconography and myths. In the photographer’s studio, the island became an observation lab, a microcosm of 20th century history: the Dole Food Company’s plantations, the history of the Hawaiian shirt, the 1944 Chicago Convention, the invention of the atom bomb and the advent of the Internet, among others, have shaped our mental perception of Hawaii. These popular imagery components act as a form of diluted propaganda object. The series combines contemporary artifacts to form an installation, as a sort of visual archaeology of the future.

Benoît Jeannet graduated from Vevey Photography School (2012) and then from the ECAL University of Art and Design in Lausanne (2015) and holds a master’s degree in visual arts from HEAD Geneva University of Art and Design (2019). He was awarded the Broncolor Light Award at Vevey’s Festival Images in 2019 for his series Escape from Paradise. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, including at the Festival Images, Vevey, Jimei × Arles Photo festival, Jimei (China), Foam Museum, Amsterdam and the Rencontres de la photographie, Arles.