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Bonfires
In Northern Ireland each summer, strange monuments spring up, ziggurats of modern times, Babel towers precarious or solidly encamped. The reality behind these constructions - future bonfires - is actually much disenchanted. The burning of Bonfires on the night of July 11 to 12 may be the moment of the highest crystallization of hatred that still separates Northern Ireland into two camps Unionist (Protestant loyalist, pro-British) on one hand, and Republicans (Catholic Irish) on the other. Cultural act much as ostentatious challenge, Bonfires are erected in Protestant districts in commemoration of the victory of William of Orange on Jacques of England, the last Catholic king in 1690. They have now the opportunity to burn Irish flags and Catholic symbols, under the eyes of the latter.
If peace agreements were signed in 1998, ending decades of bloody conflict, tensions between the two communities remain no less present; they have sometimes found new forms paramilitary force demonstrations, frescoed representations of increasingly violent of Troubles, separation walls ... So many scars and clues to the fragility of that peace.
These are the traces left by a near civil war, at once so near and so distant, so recent and so poorly known that intrigued Philippe Grollier. Since 2003, the photographer travels regularly on site to try to understand the consequences of this conflict on different generations, but also on the landscape. He began to capture the Bonfires, while at the bottom of it, he had one desire, they have to disappear and cease to awaken violence annually.
These constructions have something fascinating and attractive as long as they can generate rejection. Some towers are frail, along the imbalance in the urgent waiting the show, while others, millimeter, colorful, figure as prowess, small collective wonders, others are brutal monuments. Philippe Grollier,’s photographs made in series, always take the same view: front, center; Picture feature offers the sharpness of shots taken with a large format camera and usually a human give the scale. Photographer addresses these "monuments" with a desire to serial objectivity, and only a stormy sky sometimes seems to reflect his deep thoughts.
Monuments awaiting consecration by fire, this is how we might call them, for these forms actually make sense when they fire. What is collected here is the moment of violence in its preparation, but the display contained violence, ready to explode, is the strange beauty of some accumulations just before destruction; a paradoxical moment: the "tower" is in its superb, some the sign proudly capping a British flag, while others will erect an Irish flag to burn better seen earlier, cruelty promise . The eye of the photographer records the momentary confusion, this in-between during which the meaning is lost, eventually. Between pure neutrality and paper committed to each to decide in these images instead of folk form of artistic form, and the provocation, violence, pride of the defense.
If peace agreements were signed in 1998, ending decades of bloody conflict, tensions between the two communities remain no less present; they have sometimes found new forms paramilitary force demonstrations, frescoed representations of increasingly violent of Troubles, separation walls ... So many scars and clues to the fragility of that peace.
These are the traces left by a near civil war, at once so near and so distant, so recent and so poorly known that intrigued Philippe Grollier. Since 2003, the photographer travels regularly on site to try to understand the consequences of this conflict on different generations, but also on the landscape. He began to capture the Bonfires, while at the bottom of it, he had one desire, they have to disappear and cease to awaken violence annually.
These constructions have something fascinating and attractive as long as they can generate rejection. Some towers are frail, along the imbalance in the urgent waiting the show, while others, millimeter, colorful, figure as prowess, small collective wonders, others are brutal monuments. Philippe Grollier,’s photographs made in series, always take the same view: front, center; Picture feature offers the sharpness of shots taken with a large format camera and usually a human give the scale. Photographer addresses these "monuments" with a desire to serial objectivity, and only a stormy sky sometimes seems to reflect his deep thoughts.
Monuments awaiting consecration by fire, this is how we might call them, for these forms actually make sense when they fire. What is collected here is the moment of violence in its preparation, but the display contained violence, ready to explode, is the strange beauty of some accumulations just before destruction; a paradoxical moment: the "tower" is in its superb, some the sign proudly capping a British flag, while others will erect an Irish flag to burn better seen earlier, cruelty promise . The eye of the photographer records the momentary confusion, this in-between during which the meaning is lost, eventually. Between pure neutrality and paper committed to each to decide in these images instead of folk form of artistic form, and the provocation, violence, pride of the defense.
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