Julian Charrière
Polygon I
2014
black and white double exposure medium format film on baryta paper, steel frame, thermonuclear strata
152 x 182 centimeters
Unique
Inspired by J.G. Ballard's short story The Terminal Beach, Julian CHARRIÈRE has travelled to the Polygon of Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, to shoot the video Somewhere and the photographic series Polygon. That site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, where the first Soviet atomic bomb exploded in 1949, followed until 1989 by another 455 – a total explosive power over 2'500 times more than the Hiroshima bomb. The Polygon photographs were shot in the same place on analogue film, and submitted to radiation from sand taken on the site of the Polygon before their development. Thus they both depict the site of nuclear radiation and bear the actual trace of radioactivity's effects.
Julian Charrière
Polygon II
2014
black and white double exposure medium format film on baryta paper, steel frame, thermonuclear strata
152 x 182 centimeters
Unique
Inspired by J.G. Ballard's short story The Terminal Beach, Julian CHARRIÈRE has travelled to the Polygon of Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, to shoot the video Somewhere and the photographic series Polygon. That site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, where the first Soviet atomic bomb exploded in 1949, followed until 1989 by another 455 – a total explosive power over 2'500 times more than the Hiroshima bomb. The Polygon photographs were shot in the same place on analogue film, and submitted to radiation from sand taken on the site of the Polygon before their development. Thus they both depict the site of nuclear radiation and bear the actual trace of radioactivity's effects.
Julian Charrière
Polygon III
2014
black and white double exposure medium format film on baryta paper, steel frame, thermonuclear strata
152 x 182 centimeters
Unique
Inspired by J.G. Ballard's short story The Terminal Beach, Julian CHARRIÈRE has travelled to the Polygon of Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, to shoot the video Somewhere and the photographic series Polygon. That site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, where the first Soviet atomic bomb exploded in 1949, followed until 1989 by another 455 – a total explosive power over 2'500 times more than the Hiroshima bomb. The Polygon photographs were shot in the same place on analogue film, and submitted to radiation from sand taken on the site of the Polygon before their development. Thus they both depict the site of nuclear radiation and bear the actual trace of radioactivity's effects.
Julian Charrière
Polygon IV
2015
black and white double exposure medium format film on baryta paper, steel frame, thermonuclear strata
152 x 182 centimeters
Unique
Inspired by J.G. Ballard's short story The Terminal Beach, Julian CHARRIÈRE has travelled to the Polygon of Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, to shoot the video Somewhere and the photographic series Polygon. That site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, where the first Soviet atomic bomb exploded in 1949, followed until 1989 by another 455 – a total explosive power over 2'500 times more than the Hiroshima bomb. The Polygon photographs were shot in the same place on analogue film, and submitted to radiation from sand taken on the site of the Polygon before their development. Thus they both depict the site of nuclear radiation and bear the actual trace of radioactivity's effects.
Julian Charrière
Tropisme
2014
frozen plants, refrigerated showcase
170 x 70 centimeters
Unique
Tropisme is a monumental refrigerated display case in which plants casted in an ice sheath are installed. These ferns, orchids and succulents are amongst the oldest plant species on Earth, since they survived the major extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous, around 65 millions year ago, that led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs as well as many other living species. Witnesses of very ancient times that are far below the human scale, living fossils whose DNA survived through time periods and glaciations, Julian Charrière cryopreserves these plants to keep them in an eternal present – as if time could be stopped, and the plants, protected from the effetcs of entropy and decay, archived for the future. This work is also inspired by the science-fiction novel The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, who imagines Earth, its wildlife and flora back to how they were during Prehistory, hostiles to human beings, themselves dominated by their 'reptilian brain' and tempted by a regression toward a primitive condition. These plants, often found in our daily environment as houseplants, keep close to us a sort of memory of these primitive times.
