Matthieu Chazal Photography
- La Dame à la Robe Fleurie et autres chroniques du Caucase / The Lady with a Flowery Dress and other chronicles from the Caucasus
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"Le Caucase, c'est la mer et les montagnes qui enferment de tous côtés", se lamente un personnage d'Anton Tchekhov ("Le Duel" 1891). Le cloisonnement, ce sont aussi les frontières fermées entre les différents territoires qui composent la région du Sud-Caucase: Arménie, Géorgie, Azerbaïdjan, et les deux enclaves et républiques autoproclamées du Haut-Karabakh et l'Abkhazie. Coincé entre la Russie et le Moyen-Orient, entre mers Noire et Caspienne, le Caucase est un espace fragmenté, fracassé par des conflits ethniques et territoriaux.
La série La Dame à la Robe Fleurie invite à un voyage dans cette région morcelée où les habitants semblent pris entre les élans du rêve et ses retombées, l'utopie soviétique et son évanouissement, l'espoir né des indépendances et les désillusions qui ont suivi. Saynètes de la vie ordinaire à la périphérie du monde, ces photos dessinent les promesses d'évasion qu'offre la mer et les limites d'un territoire cerné de montagnes et de frontières cadenassées. On y voit des hommes en uniformes, des femmes aux bains, des enfants aux cours de danse traditionnelle, des uniformes encore, lors des défilés militaires qui viennent rompre la routine des villes aux allures provinciales.

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“The Caucasus, the sea and the mountains which close in on all sides”, laments a character from the Chekhov novel “The Duel”. This separation is further exasperated by closed borders between the different territories which compose the region: Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaïdjan, and the two landlocked and self-proclaimed states of Nagorno-Karabagh and Abkhazia.
Caught between Russia and the Middle-East, between the Black and the Caspian seas, the Caucasus is a fragmented region, broken by ethnic and territorial conflicts. This series is an invitation into these divided territories where the inhabitants seem to be caught between the momentum of a dream and its subsequent fallout, Soviet utopia and its disappearance, hopes born of independence and the disillusions which followed.
Fragments of daily life at the edge of the world, these photographs evoke the promises of escape offered by the sea and the limits of a land surrounded by mountains and locked borders: men in uniform, women at the baths, children learning traditional dance, and military parades which temporarily break the routine of these provincial towns...
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Batumi, Georgia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Tkvarcheli, Abkhazia
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Tkvarcheli, Abkhazia
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Echmiadzine, Armenia
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Echmiadzine, Armenia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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Around Kutaisi, Georgia
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Around Kutaisi, Georgia
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La dame à la robe fleurie
Kutaisi, Géorgie
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La dame à la robe fleurie
Kutaisi, Géorgie
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Tigranakert, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Tigranakert, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Front line, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Front line, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Around Poti, Georgia
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Around Poti, Georgia
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On the road to Nagorno-Karabakh
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On the road to Nagorno-Karabakh
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Around Ninotsminda, Georgia
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Around Ninotsminda, Georgia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Kyndug, Abkhazia
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Kyndug, Abkhazia
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Zugdidi, Georgia
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Zugdidi, Georgia
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Makhuntseti, Adjaria, Georgia
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Makhuntseti, Adjaria, Georgia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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Gosha Circus, Yerevan, Armenia
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Gosha Circus, Yerevan, Armenia
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Village school, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Village school, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Staline museum, Gori, Georgia
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Staline museum, Gori, Georgia
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Yerevan opera, Armenia
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Yerevan opera, Armenia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Mtskheta, Georgia
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Mtskheta, Georgia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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Sukhumi, Abkhazia
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La dame à la robe fleurie
Tkvarcheli, Abkhazie
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La dame à la robe fleurie
Tkvarcheli, Abkhazie
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh
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Zugdidi, Georgia
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Zugdidi, Georgia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Batumi, Georgia
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Tbilisi, Georgia
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Tbilisi, Georgia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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Around Batumi, Georgia
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