Thibaut Derien – J’habite une ville fantôme!
“Nothing is more constant than change”
Thibaut Derien’s pictures feel like stage sets from a Wes Anderson storyboard. Photographic poems in color. About 20 years ago, Thibaut began traveling through his native France, purposely avoiding main roads. The former songwriter has swapped words for images and music for silence. After years of negligent urban policy, especially in the suburbs and small towns, a new aesthetic became visible. Thibaut Derien uses documentary photography as an art form. His images reflect the triviality of everyday life in a sentimental strangeness of the splendor of days long gone. The series Ville Fantôme shows – almost like a movie set – a reality that no longer exists. Behind closed shutters, the images evoke questions, arouse curiosity and at the same time unfold a mysterious beauty that reveals itself to the sensitive eye in gradual decay.