Adrien Selbert — Les Bords Réels

Les Rencontres d’Arles
16 rue Vernon, 13 200, Arles (FRANCE)
From July 1 to 6, 2019

Can a country pass out?

That was the first question he asked me.

He said to me:
We have surrounded the country with words to give meaning to its war.
They said “fratricide”, they said “religion”, they said “ethnic”.
Ultimate words thrown like grenades to define the contours of a conflict we understood nothing about.
In order not to get tangled up in the names of its people, its religions and its language, we wrapped everything up in a simple and terrifying formula: “At the gates of Europe”.
At that time, there was talk of a siege, a massacre and soon of genocide.

He said to me:
After four years of horror, the country has been cut in two. And to purge the last ardors, they made sign
And to purge the last ardors, they had the “Accords” signed, like bleeding a gash in the body of the country.
Then the bullets stopped flying, the cameras went out and everyone went home.

He told me that the bleeding was too strong and that it was not impossible that the country had lost consciousness

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the end of the conflict in Bosnia in 2020, Les Bords réels extends and completes the first photographic work produced by Adrien Selbert in 2015, Srebrenica, night by night, hailed by numerous awards and published by Le Bec en l’air Editions. This new three-year project pushes the limits of his photographic writing towards more experimentation and poetry. This series received the support of the SCAM and the CNAP and was exhibited by Agence VU’ at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2019.

Les Bords Réels, Les rencontres d’Arles, 2019

Les Bords Réels, Les rencontres d’Arles, 2019

Les Bords Réels, Les rencontres d’Arles, 2019