JOSÉPHINE VALLÉ FRANCESCHI

Once journeys are completed, their only object becomes memory. We return with memories, a face, a moment, an end of the day—ultimately things we're unsure how to handle: the intensity of moments gives way to the emotion of reminiscences. That's why I've set out to preserve both, not only by taking photographs but also by using a double exposure technique. With a film camera, I take a first photograph, lock the shot, and take a second, sometimes a third, that overlays the first. The shots are taken in different places and at different times.

The effects of transparency, variations in brightness, and the play of colors are natural. I don't retouch anything; the images appear as they were taken, without post-production work or retouching. I'm not seeking perfection, but harmony. Where artifice is, poetry is not, that's my conviction. Chance is the main challenge of my work. It's only during development that I discover the result. It's fortunate, only a few times.

Art is an end in itself. Its role is not to transfigure reality but to create another reality that only imagination can reach. The place and time of my photographs aim to be undetectable. The superposition of two moments breaks with the supposed realism of photography. My shots are propositions for the imagination; their stories are not fixed. Everyone sees what they wish, and there are as many possible interpretations as there are perspectives.