Yann Pocreau
Détours

[En anglais]

When we dream, we process reality, drawing on memories and combining disparate objects, actions, and perceptions, both experienced and imaginary, which get woven into a detailed hallucinatory experience. Yann Pocreau’s Détours, presented at the Manif d’art, taps into this cognitive function, presenting a poignant reflection on the power of memories and dreams, their fleeting nature, and their profound impact on our identity and perception of reality. Détours is a three-channel slideshow projected onto a colossal 12-by-4-metre wall of ice, featuring over 250 vernacular slides from his personal ongoing collection, which was erected in the Parc de la Francophonie as a response to the biennial’s theme, The Strength of Sleep.

The series of images selected includes holiday mementos, landscape shots, family portraits, even botched photographs from the 1950s to 1980s, and some perhaps more recent. The projected slides, selected randomly by an algorithmic program, engage with the cinematic Kuleshov effect, juxtaposing up to three images at a time to evoke endless dialogues and micro-narratives. The nostalgic essence of these images is both enhanced and abstracted by the ice’s rugged texture, transforming them into blurry, sometimes unrecognizable compositions of colour and form. The gesture of congealing images in ice highlights how photographs are memory supports devoid of original sensory contexts such as scent and sound, yet with a dormant potential of affect. Projected in a public setting, the images become “re-embodied” through their interaction with the audience.