Galleries in Paris

Heterotopia is a fall. Architects frustrate nature by creating ascending shapes. Nature, on the contrary, tends to flatten everything. This series shows this eternal struggle that even monuments end up losing.  The history of these places is the history of our crises and the history of the failure of utopian projects. These ruins reveal the dark hidden parts and cast doubts on autophagous systems that let destroy what they have built themselves. My work focuses on those mistakes and the forgotten losers of history. I give voice to those that are often ignored or neglected. Heterotopia is a testimony to today’s small ones, former monuments supporting great expectations. It also shows what would happen if mankind disappeared from the planet. Nature would reassert itself and reclaim its rights. Our civilization would be forgotten almost instantly, covered up with moss.
But Heterotopia is also a rise. It is the birth of a new order, the harmony of nature and culture. These places have never been as beautiful as today, in decay. Physics makes art and magnifies architecture. My photography praises the slow and meticulous work of time, the inspired worker. These stout and monumental monsters, relics of the past, murmur lessons to our ears. I hear them shout the brevity and fragility of our existence. They have an edification power. Could it be possible to imagine vanity and the “memento mori” in a more powerful way than the monument to ruin? Additionally, one may see in them an opportunity to make peace with our past. Humanity makes mistakes and people must be reminded of that. These terrible mutilations, we will end up liking them.
Behind the dust, the rust and under the rubble, we can sense the architects’ original visions of order and the rigid geometry of the buildings. The shots are framed with an almost mathematic exigency and show decrepit textures, all to try and make the viewer discern the conflict in these places that are falling into chaos and rising with meaning.
Vincent J. Stoker