The Good, the Bad, the Blurred

Franco-German photographer Alexandre Dupeyron took us through his abstracted realities that tread the line between documentary and fiction

- Vani Sriranganayaki

We are very visual beings. Words: we’ll easily forget them. But a picture lives forever. Everything we see, read, write, think, dream, remember: it is all essentially in a sequence of static images, a slideshow of thoughts and experiences, pieced together and carefully framed, to help visualise an arbitrary moment in time and space. Even more so now, with the ubiquitous nature of photography. Populating literally every stream of consciousness, they have come to represent a warped but poignant sense of validation: ‘this is me. I was here’ – a mirror that seemingly speaks the truth. But then there are times when its role, when the very purpose of photography is turned on its head. Case in point: Franco-German photographer Alexandre Dupeyron and his abstracted fragments of reality that are left open to interpretation.

Blurring the details of any time or spatial references, Dupeyron’s works present a rather poetic narrative of our rapidly urbanising environments. ‘While travelling between fast-moving cities, a conviction grew in me – everything is slowly merging into one: West, East, South, North. I only keep an imprecise trace, a blurry image, like a distorting mirror we are all reflected in. If only we can learn from our own mistakes and even more from the mistakes of others,’ he said over an e-mail conversation, where he spoke about his practice, the consequences of modernity and mankind’s place within its very ambiguous connotations.

Excerpts from the conversation

Often, in the pursuit of any art form or craft, what many strive for is perfection. Choosing to intentionally blur the details in your images might, on the outside, seem like a rebellious move. Can you let us in on what prompted it?