Katherine Longly

Visual artist - Photographer

Art workshops - Cultural mediation & participative projects - Trainings

fr

Philou, privante detective

2012

The president of Saint-Gilles' Public Center for Social Help asked me to realize a photography project in the home for elderly people called "Les Tilleuls". I was not a resident, so I didn't feel capable of describing in an accurate way what it was like to live there. I therefore asked the residents themselves to photograph their daily life and thus to be involved in the construction of their own image.

Six women agreed to photograph their daily routine using disposable cameras. Every one of them built a subjective story : one is focusing on a ray of light captured from one of the windows of the residence, another one described to me the incredible days of Philou the cat, another took pictures of good meals shared with her loved ones...

Those six ladies shared a piece of intimacy with me through their images. I wanted to offer them a counterpart. So I proposed to make for them a photograph of their choice ; an image that they would like to hang on the wall of their room. A photograph that they would have pleasure to look at. So I found myself on Belgian roads in search of a hotel full of memories in Nieuwpoort, a sunset in Durbuy or a miniature statue of Claude François in Hoeilaart.

The result can be seen as a double portrait, even if we almost never see the face of the photographers. Our images are already telling so much about us.