Une Île (An Island)
Marie Sommer
Filigranes
French and English
Text by Jean-Yves Jouannais and Rafael Argullol
Edition of 600
195 x 280 mm
2021
An island is voluntarily left without designation, it is a possibility, a real and fictional narration, which retraces the attraction that this place exerts on the imagination. The book brings together photographs taken between 2012 and 2015, an original text by Jean-Yves Jouannais, and excerpts from an essay by Rafael Argullol “L’attraction de l’abîme”, published in 1983. All these elements dealing with their way of certain aspects of the island of Rügen located in the North-East of Germany on the Baltic Sea, whose chalk cliffs, sinking into the sea, were immortalized by the romantic painter Caspard David Friedrich in 1818 Putbus, the first seaside resort on the island, was founded in 1816 and later other resorts were created. In 1936 the Nazi authorities planned a station consisting of a six-kilometre uniform building facing the sea: Prora. The latter, a seaside town contained within a single 5-kilometre bar organized by the KdF: Kraft durch Freude (strength through joy), aims to accommodate 20,000 holidaymakers at the same time. Two-thirds of the building was never finished, because the war interrupted its construction, and its ruins line up 10,000 identically repeated rooms on 5 floors, all with a view of the sea. It then serves as a military base for the Soviet army during the Cold War, and temporarily disappears from maps. aims to accommodate 20,000 holidaymakers at the same time. Two-thirds of the building was never finished, because the war interrupted its construction, and its ruins line up 10,000 identically repeated rooms on 5 floors, all with a view of the sea. It then serves as a military base for the Soviet army during the Cold War, and temporarily disappears from maps. aims to accommodate 20,000 holidaymakers at the same time. Two-thirds of the building was never finished, because the war interrupted its construction, and its ruins line up 10,000 identically repeated rooms on 5 floors, all with a view of the sea. It then serves as a military base for the Soviet army during the Cold War, and temporarily disappears from maps.
Ruegen, the largest of the German islands (900 km2), is located on the Baltic Sea, between Poland and Denmark. Its geography is unstable and its contours shifting. The chalk cliffs of the island, descending towards the sea to collapse there, take with them the trees and all the vegetation they contain.
The book Une île, brings together photographs taken in Rügen between 2011 and 2013, and found images, anonymous documents, archives or vernacular. The origin of each image is not specified, leaving the drawn island to float between the possible and the imaginary.
About the Artist
Marie Sommer is a visual artist, photographer and videographer trained at the School of Decorative Arts and the School of Photography in Arles. She published with Filigranes and LE BAL, Teufelsberg, in 2010, a book accompanied by a text by Jean-Yves Jouannais, then became a resident of Casa Velázquez in Madrid in 2012 and resident of the Ile de France Photographic Center in 2016. and the Cité internationale des Arts in 2017. Her work has been exhibited at the Center Culturel de Rentilly, at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris, at the Kyoto Art Center in Japan, etc… Since 2018 she has been an artist-researcher at the within Figura, Center for Research on Text and the Imaginary within the University of Quebec in Montreal, in partnership with the Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing.
About the Publisher
For 27 years, Filigranes has been following an original and audacious path in artists’ editions. The editorial approach combines image and writing in unique books. Founded by Patrick Le Bescont, the catalogue offers 580 titles. The editorial approach is to combine Filigranes, in singular books, picture and writing, thus making cross eyes and sensibilities of photographers authors, artists and contemporary writers, without exclusion or styles genres.
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