La Pennétrie
Charles Bouchaib

Long before the development induced by hydroelectricity and more recently by tourism, the territories around the Maurienne were exploited very early. From Hannibal, the roads of Mont-Cenis crossed the Alps to Italy. Also here, the railroad pioneers experimented. Today, a new passage is about to be dug, an instrument of the economy of flows and the completion of an old desire. The piercing of the Lyon-Turin tunnel crystallizes the disparity in relationships over time. A coveted time, whose incompressibility tries to be abolished by the obstinate search for speed. Indispensable trans-European link for some, its legitimacy is also condemned.

I wanted to explore these landscapes reconfigured by mobility. They carry the indications of a desired acceleration. Support of economic vagaries, they remain an ephemeral compromise between anthropic interests and natural constraints. When should we consider that technology makes the world more or less habitable? Is there a disconnect between economic time and human time? Where is the scale that makes a resilient environment permanently modified and hostile? To evoke these issues, I chose to build images ranging from narrative evocation to documentary survey.

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