Steeve Iuncker — Villes Extrêmes

Festival de L’Œil Urbain
Parc de la Commanderie Saint Jean et Théâtre de Corbeil Essonnes (FRANCE)
From the 23^th of March to the 17^th of May 2015

How do we live in cities where violence, weather and demographics are out of the ordinary? Their inhabitants could have deserted them; on the contrary, they stayed. These peculiarities are now part of their daily lives. And they live in them. Pollution, cold or overcrowding have entered them.

How to illustrate this? I chose to live with these city-dwellers for a few days, usually in their homes. The result is scenes of ordinary life, taken in an extraordinary environment.

In Yakutsk, a city tormented by extreme negative temperatures, trips outside are reduced to a minimum. Taking pictures in these temperatures is a perilous operation: my camera only works for about fifteen minutes before it completely freezes…

The pollution of Ahvaz is the consequence of its wealth: an oil subsoil. The extraction of crude gold and refining generate all sorts of harmful compounds. With temperatures reaching 47°C, Ahvaz’s burning atmosphere is not about to change.

I am currently continuing this work on extreme cities, notably thanks to the prize awarded in 2013 by the National Museum of Natural History. On arrival, nine places, chosen according to statistics. A deliberately odd number to avoid the effects of symmetry. Hot will not respond to cold any more than peace will to crime. Besides, the tranquility index is not quantifiable. All five continents should be represented, even if certain regions of the globe tend to multiply negative records. The measure, or rather the average, is not given to everyone…