synopsis
In Tunisia, next to Resort Hotels’ private beaches, local people settle in public beaches every summer, improvising an ephemeral habitat for the day, a micro architecture connected with nature. Wilderness camping, vernacular shelters or expression of the Bedouin tradition, these nomads bubbles embedded in the sand show as many solutions implemented to fully enjoy the pleasures of the beach.
The search for comfort is a constant in all human construction. Each of these bubbles is a spatial organization whose structures’ rules are dictated by the materials used (carpets, mats, “foutas”, umbrellas, wood ...), arranged according to the abilities and choices of each. This results in a variety of settlements, a complex web of simple elements whose arrangement and orientation is determined by the solar race, wind intensity, functional happiness of needs and activities.
Horizontality, verticality, angle, curvature, continuity, discontinuity, superposition, dissociation of constructed space ... behind the apparent simplicity of form, the combination and juxtaposition of these elements are complex causal relations : economic social and cultural data, determined by the architectural answer. In an environment delivered to those who disfigure it, Tunisians spontaneously erect an architecture of happiness, soothing and poetic, contrasting with the hegemony of starred hotels, where luxury and comfort are often only promises of happiness.
Formal expression of Tunisians’ mythical and spiritual relationship Tunisians with their environment, this micro nomadic architecture has the virtue of showing us the opportunity to recreate at a human scale, a small paradise on earth.
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technical information
Publisher : Lalla Hadria Editions
2015
Language : french / english
136 pages
Dimensions : 16.5 x 23.5 cm
2015
Language : french / english
136 pages
Dimensions : 16.5 x 23.5 cm
about Yoann Cimier
Yoann Cimier (born in France in 1974) is a french photographer working between France and Tunisia.
His practice is articulated between commissions and personal works centered around human and landscape, in the Mediterranean area.
His series, made in the long course, rely on a minimal or even sculptural approach to photography. His technique, which is part of the control of chance and coincidence, is to interact a variety of forms / photographic objects to reveal social issues. Framing, distance and light remain the essential elements of his photographic language.
Borrowing the codes of documentary photography and plastic photography, his work falls under two directions of contemporary photography : the one from the document - which sublimates reality - and that of the pictorial tradition, which shows a painting.
In 2013 he founded his own studio - Studio Zembra (inspired by an archipelago off the coast of Tunis) to control the production of his prints and control the production of the works right through to framing. An expertise that leads him to put his know-how at the service of local photographers, artists in residence, galleries, foundations, festivals and institutions for the production of exhibitions.
Located in the heart of the village of Sidi Bou Saïd the studio is also an exhibtion space Galerie Zembretta exclusively dedicated to photography.
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Publisher : Lalla Hadria Editions
2015 (1st edition)
2015 (1st edition)