Renault factory on Ile Seguin, 2003
I had the opportunity to take a series of pictures during the winter of 2003 inside the Renault factory located on the Séguin island. The winter light coming in from all sides in this disused industrial cathedral, emptied of assembly lines, highlighted an extraordinary journey of color. What used to be a signage or a differentiating environment of activity zones, became for me a strictly photographic thread. I was suddenly fascinated by the freedom of this color, capable of reappearing even under the dust of the ground, thanks to the work of the rain infiltrating through the perforated canopies.
I also had the impression that this factory was alive, often in a sinister way, because the work of rust sometimes threw to the ground what was still standing yesterday. Everything was on the move and everything was promised to be demolished once and for all.
The anecdote of the recent addition of graffiti, allowed by the disaffection of the island, was not my main interest. Above all, I wanted to transpose the space of the old factory, its holes, its perspectives or its fences. The verticality and the systematic recourse to the ground to anchor my images were also a determining bias of respect for the place, for its immediate legibility, in order not to give in to the temptation to abstraction.
– Pierre-Olivier Deschamps
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