Isabelle Giovacchini

Isabelle Giovacchini has been working experimentally with images for over fifteen years. A singular figure in French photography, she has developed an empirical and intuitive approach to this medium, based on the manipulation of documents discovered through her research in archives, her readings or by sheer chance. She seeks to alter the photographic medium, then to fix her experiments until a limit is reached, 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 her native Mediterranean region. She regularly leaves the realm of the image to work in the form of installations, projections or discrete interventions in the landscape.

For the Vif-argent series, begun in 2022, Isabelle Giovacchini scans old pricked mirrors, sometimes precious and centuries-old, other times modest or fragile, all gleaned over time and from encounters. She prints the images obtained in a silver-based laboratory on high-gloss paper, with a rendering close to Cibachrome.

The untouched areas of the tint are translated into black by the scanner, dazzled by its own reflection. The pitted areas produce an array of shapes, stains and accidents that each viewer is free to interpret in his or her own way; worlds that translate the lifeline of each mirror, like portraits or abstract landscapes.