On February 21, 2014, when the ousted Ukraine President Yanukovych’s residence mezhyhirya was finally open to the public none of the visitors were probably ready for the over the top melange of kitsch ,excess and indecencies of the whole estate .
I am pleased to be invited by visionquest to exhibit my serie : 38E parallele nord
Hélène Veilleux “strolls” in one of the most closed city in the world: Pyongyang, North Korea ……..
and she gives back postcard images that look like propaganda posters typical of the communist-era , filled with that hostility typical of that architecture designed to belittle the individual and emphasize the strength of the collective.
The power of the state on public spaces, where architecture becomes a political statement; Pyongyang is the example of a “theater” city where every view and every move are designed and built to serve a “fiction state” and where every citizen has a specific role in this authoritarian “theater”.Not being able to have access to the reality of the country, Hélène Veilleux, decides to concentrate the project of her photographs on a simple idea: what a country decides to show says a lot about what this country wants to hide.
Aided by the toned images through the use of a rosy filter, which gives them a sense of almost exaggerated sweetness, and embellished with clouds that look like cotton candy, these urban landscapes, with no or few people present, make us question what’s behind the long clean boulevards, the great monuments and brand new buildings, the large statues of the always smiling leaders: these are the questions that arise from silent 38E Parallel North.
VisionQuesT contemporary photography
Piazza Invrea 4R
16123 Genova
Phone +39 0102476642
Cell. +39 3356195394
info@visionquest.it
# http://www.visionquest.it/
Solo & Groups Show
– Echappées Belles 2014 ( Paris / France)
– ARCHIFOTO 14 ( International awards of architectural photography )
– Itinérances de Photo Docks Art Fair 2014 ( Lyon / France)
– Exposition. Arles OFF 2015 ( Arles / France)
– Totally Lost 2016 / 2017 ( Italia / Albania)
– ARTEFIERA Bologna 2018 ( Bologna / Italia )
– Odessa // Batumi Photo Days Festival 2018 ( Odessa / Ukraine )
– Festival Panoràmic 2019 ( Granollers / Spain)
Interviews & Publications
– LaSpirale.org – Un Ezine pour les Mutants Digitaux : HÉLÈNE VEILLEUX « LA DENT DE L’OEIL » (laspirale.org)
– LMC : https://www.lemauvaiscoton.fr/art/escapade-en-coree-du-nord/
– Funquatre : http://www.funquatre.fr/fr/interviews/photo-darchitecture-helene-veilleux
– Women in photography : http://www.womeninphotography.info/blog/2016/5/6/hlne-veilleux-france
and some terrible one …
– Daily Mail : Chernobyl nuclear disaster: Eerie photographs by Helene Veilleux | Daily Mail Online
Біографія
Народилася 1978 року, довгий час жила і працювала в Ліоні, Франція. Зараз мешкає у Тбілісі, Грузія. У своїх роботах досліджує гетеротопічні простори, від дивної Північної Кореї до радіоактивних руїн Чорнобиля.
