“Hyperboréal” takes up some of the issues addressed in our previous book “Les Arpenteurs”: the utopian community, the fictional narrative. If utopia there is, it resides in the body of images and in our attitude towards the reality of this territory. We have set out to take the systematic opposite of the expectations we project on this country to show a reality much more prosaic and ultimately very close to what we know in our latitudes. Our photographs explore the tension between this apparent banality and the unique change of scenery of this place. Siegfried Kracauer in his 1951 text “The Photographic Approach” theorizes the photographer’s vision as an imaginative reader in front of reality, this vision perfectly sums up our approach.
We have worked in the far east of Iceland, in a territory ranging from the Karahnjukar Dam, north of the Vatnajôkull glacier, to Reydarfjôrdur where the Fjardaal smelter owned by the American company Alcoa was established, which the “aluminium dam” supplies with hydroelectric power. Our extreme points are located 75 km from each other, at the limits of the living space, from the high plateaus to the eastern fjords. This photographic series consists of portraits, urban views and landscapes. To paraphrase Chris Marker, we tracked down the banality with the stubbornness of a treasure hunter, while confronting this banality with these spaces of fringe, of borders beyond which it is humanly even more difficult to adapt.
(Anne Favret and Patrick Manez)
Pigment prints on rag paper, framed. Various formats.
Learn more about artists:

Favret & Manez
The photographic art of Favret & Manez is a script. The language they use is being structured by what can be qualified as moments. Of
Other series of works by favret and manez

Vallons de ville, by Favret and Manez with Sophie Braganti
The series is a work of photography and literature, the result of the collaboration of the couple of photographers Favret & Manez with Sophie Braganti.

Côte d’usure – drawing and photography by: Anne Favret, Patrick Manez and Jean Philippe Roubaud
“Côte d’usure” is a set of vertical dyptics each composed of a black and white photographic print and a graphite powder drawing.

Europe – Plan B (series started in 2008), by Anne Favret and Patrick Manez
The gradual dilution of geographical identities and cultural peculiarities is the backbone of our long-term work “Europe – Plan B”, which we carry out on European cities whose name begins with the letter B: Berlin, Brussels, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bologna, Birmingham …

Arpenteurs – by Anne Favret and Patrick Manez
“Is there a world where your past reappears as if it were reality? This world is known to fans of fantasy literature and moviegoers, including admirers of Andrei Tarkovsky or Steven Soderbergh. (…) Anne Favret and Patrick Manez are a bit like the hero of Solaris. They took a closer look at a strange city, the Calern Plateau astrometric observatory located between earth and sky, not so different from a space station.” Michel Poivert

Metroplex – Anne Favret and Patrick Manez
Metroplex echoes the exponential developments in the urban landscape between Dallas and Fort Worth (USA), two areas that eventually joined in a single megalopolis of more than 5 million inhabitants as a result of their mutual expansion.
Recently documented on our website, favret and manezworks

Favret & Manez avec J.P. Roubaud,
Côte d’usure #12, 2017
Paysage de la Côte d’Azur. Photographie et dessin, impression jet d’encre et graphite sur papier Hahenmühle Photo Rag 308 g et 4 oeillets métalliques d’accrochage. 104,5 x 61 cm. Oeuvre non encadrée.

Favret&Manez avec J.P. Roubaud,
Côte d’usure #11, 2017
Paysage de la Côte d’Azur. Photographie et dessin, impression jet d’encre et graphite sur papier Hahenmühle Photo Rag 308 g et 4 oeillets métalliques d’accrochage. 104,5 x 61 cm. Non encadrée.

Favret&Manez avec J.P. Roubaud,
Côte d’usure #10, 2017
Paysage de la Côte d’Azur. Photographie et dessin, impression jet d’encre et graphite sur papier Hahenmühle Photo Rag 308 g et 4 oeillets métalliques d’accrochage. 104,5 x 61 cm. Oeuvre non encadrée.

Favret&Manez avec J.P. Roubaud,
Côte d’usure #09, 2017
Paysage de la Côte d’Azur. Photographie et dessin, impression jet d’encre et graphite sur papier Hahenmühle Photo Rag 308 g et 4 oeillets métalliques d’accrochage. 104,5 x 61 cm. Oeuvre non encadrée – pièce unique.

Favret&Manez avec J.P. Roubaud,
Côte d’usure #08, 2017
Paysage de la Côte d’Azur. Photographie et dessin, impression jet d’encre et graphite sur papier Hahenmühle Photo Rag 308 g et 4 oeillets métalliques d’accrochage. 104,5 x 61 cm. Oeuvre non encadrée.