Safouane Ben Slama
Éloge de l’ombre

February 2020 I june 2020
La Boîte I Un lieu d’art contemporain

In Spring 2018, Safouane Ben Slama travelled across Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Exploring the vast expanses and endless horizons of the Moroccan desert and the Tunisian seaside, he also roamed the streets of Algiers to meet the people who populate the city.
Following in the footsteps of Guy Debord’s psycho-geographical experiments, in which he studied how places affect our feelings and behaviour, Safouane Ben Slama’s approach is to approach the territory through a ‘conscious wandering’, letting himself be guided by the effects that the city can produce. Éloge de l’ombre (In Praise of Shadows) is a careful observation of light. The sky, often in flux at sunset, plays a central role in this series. But the foreground is often the direct environment, whether natural or urban, in which the effects of this ongoing transformation are perceptible. Safouane Ben Slama thus highlights a dialogue between the unlimited and the immaterial and the present world. This clear correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm gives rise to a reflection on the relationship between the individual and the collective. The sky, a universal backdrop, appears as a common denominator for us all.
Safouane Ben Slama attaches great importance to the co-ordinates of human existence, and in this context the landscape offers itself as an extension of the soul. To watch a sunset is to experience the passage of time and its relationship to the world, in a phenomenology of time for seeing, here and now.
From this contemplative attitude stems a certain re-enchantment of everyday life.
The title of the Éloge de l’ombre series, borrowed from the book of the same name by the Japanese author Junichirô Tanizaki, takes on its full meaning. The book deals with a concept that is as aesthetic as it is spiritual: wabi-sabi. While Wabi refers to the plenitude and melancholy that can be experienced in the face of nature and solitude, Sabi evokes the sensation of the work of time. Tanizaki’s Éloge de l’ombre (In Praise of Shadows) is a tribute to simplicity and discretion, against the flashy and the gaudy, with a view to appreciating the beauty of things that are imperfect, modest and altered by time. In keeping with this philosophy, Safouane Ben Slama has chosen to focus his attention on those marvels that have remained in the metaphorical ‘shadows’, to highlight the less obvious beauty that has suffered the patina of time, and to learn to look again.
Practice savouring the harmony in the irregularity of a façade, admiring the dryness of a cracking floor, or appreciating the dirt or rust on a surface because it produces an unexpected nuance. It’s a pleasure to observe brambles entwined in the ironwork of a balcony for their decorative value, or the carcass of a derelict bus because the destitution of its structure matches that of the desert in which it lies.
A palette of muted colours, textures that respond to each other… Together, the images reveal their power and acquire a synergy. They illustrate a coherent atmosphere and point of view: Éloge de l’ombre is the experience of a North African dream, a story of the gaze and a hymn to fraternity.
Safouane Ben Slama describes this practice of sharing pure beauty with others as “aesthetic solidarity”. In fact, he attributes almost political qualities to beauty, since it generates action or, rather, a pause, an interruption in each person’s life dedicated to contemplation. Éloge de l’ombre alternates moments of meditation with moments of connection. A connection between the people photographed and their environment, but also a connection between the photographer and his or her subject. Arm in arm, hands crossing, architectural interlacing, parabolas on rooftops – all signs and symbols of relationships being forged and bonds being affirmed. It’s about taking the time to experience the passage of time, alone or in a group, like the two teenagers who meet up every evening to watch the sunset.

Elsa Delage
Commissaire d’exposition.

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