“To give truth the colour and nar­ra­ti­ve for­ce of fic­tion”, this was Tru­man Capote’s ambi­tion when he wro­te ‘In Cold Blood’, the true account of a qua­dru­ple homi­ci­de in 1960s Kan­sas. It is the star­ting point for Non Fic­tion, a work of lyri­cal docu­men­ta­ry that explo­res the porous boun­da­ry bet­ween fact and fic­tion in pho­to­gra­phy.

The pre­mi­se is sim­ple: is it pos­si­ble to pho­to­gra­ph the world as it is — throu­gh chan­ce encoun­ters and local news sto­ries — and crea­te a series that feels like fic­tion?

Sin­ce its begin­nings, pho­to­gra­phy has had a slip­pe­ry rela­tion to truth: even the most ‘objec­ti­ve’ por­trai­ts will neces­sa­ri­ly invol­ve deci­sions rela­ting to loca­tion, light and pose. Indeed, even the authen­ti­ci­ty of the very fir­st pho­to­gra­ph of a human being (Louis Daguerre’s Bou­le­vard du Tem­ple, 1838) is still in que­stion near­ly two cen­tu­ries after its crea­tion. In the cur­rent con­text, whe­re the boun­da­ry bet­ween what is real and what isn’t is increa­sin­gly ambi­guous (e.g. fake news, info­tain­ment, AI gene­ra­ted ima­ge­ry…), it seems more per­ti­nent than ever to reflect on our rela­tion to rea­li­ty and how it is media­ted throu­gh ima­ges.

Non Fic­tion plays on the ten­sion bet­ween the real and the unreal throu­gh a varie­ty of visual stra­te­gies deployed to blur the lines (props, off-came­ra flash, cine­ma­tic cli­chés…). Ima­ges made in the real world accu­mu­la­te and coa­le­sce, for­ming a nar­ra­ti­ve that is fluid and mul­ti­di­rec­tio­nal, sug­ge­sti­ve yet unfi­xed. Fra­med in this way, dai­ly life is tran­sfor­med: eve­ry win­dow hides secre­ts, eve­ry stran­ger is a pro­ta­go­ni­st, eve­ry object beco­mes a clue or a pie­ce of evi­den­ce.

Eve­ry­thing is real, eve­ry­thing is fake, but one thing is for cer­tain: fact is at lea­st as stran­ge as fic­tion.

The project’s title makes refe­ren­ce to the fact that in lite­ra­tu­re, the dicho­to­my is bet­ween fic­tion and non-fic­tion — perhaps in pho­to­gra­phy as well, the­re is a tacit under­stan­ding that truth is always rela­ti­ve.

Non Fic­tion was made across Nor­man­dy in 2022/2023 during an exten­ded resi­den­cy hosted by the Plan­ches Con­tact pho­to­gra­phy festi­val in Deau­vil­le, Fran­ce. It was exhi­bi­ted at Les Fran­ci­scai­nes museum (Fran­ce), at inCa­da­qués Inter­na­tio­nal Pho­to Festi­val (Spain) and recen­tly won the fir­st pri­ze of Pho­to­Mar­seil­le’s “Prix Mai­son Blan­che”. Non Fic­tion will be publi­shed as my fir­st book in Sep­tem­ber 2024 by Le Bec en L’Air edi­tions, desi­gned by Mela­nie Mues.