Isabelle GIOVACCHINI

For over fifteen years, Isabelle Giovacchini has been conducting experimental work on the image. A unique figure in French photography, she develops an empirical and intuitive approach to this medium, made of manipulations of documents discovered through her archival research, her readings, or by sheer chance. She seeks to alter the photographic medium, then to fix her experiments to a breaking point, just before the images disappear. Her vocabulary is that of the fragment, the imprint, and the spectral. Her research is often rooted in the heritage and resources of the Mediterranean territory, where she originates. She regularly steps outside the sole domain of the image to work in the form of installations, projections, or even discreet interventions, within the landscape itself.

For the series Vif-argent, initiated in 2022, Isabelle Giovacchini scans old, tarnished mirrors, sometimes precious and centuries old, other times modest or fragile, all gleaned over time and through encounters. She develops the resulting images in a silver lab on very glossy paper, with a rendering close to Cibachrome.

The intact areas of the backing are rendered in black by the scanner, blinded by its own reflection. The areas with pitting produce a collection of shapes, spots, and accidents that each viewer is free to interpret in their own way; so many worlds that reflect, like portraits or abstract landscapes, the life story of each mirror.