Fall and Fire

Under the guise of a classic journey from east to west across the American continent, Fall and Fire is at the same time a photographic proposal and a conceptual work. Fall brings together images taken on the East Coast of the United States in the months leading up to Barack Obama's first election. The book is a subjective perspective on the invasiveness of nature in New England. Fire can be interpreted as a remake of Fall eight years later, this time on the West Coast, in the months before the election of Donald Trump. California asphalt and desert replace the forests of the first book. These are two independent volumes, but the spaces that separate them are tangible: an eight-year gap in the country's history, in the life and practice of Nicolas Giraud; and the gaps between the two coasts of the continent, between digital images and analog images. The connections and correspondences from one book to another can also be observed, with the photographs and gestures echoing, often by chance, from one book to another. The two volumes are part of the same circular structure. Fall opens in late summer and runs until winter; Fire opens in winter and runs until summer. With Fall as with Fire, the images make no precise statements, but rather provide hints at what is being played out beneath the surface.