Celine CROZE

Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos (As long as we are alive, we will see each other)

SQEVNV is a series that deals with violence in Latin America, or rather a certain urgency to live. I began this work in 2015 in Venezuela, the country at that time was entering a great crisis of violence and I confess that I was overwhelmed by the electric atmosphere that Caracas could have. The danger extinguished palpable at every exit and I began to develop a kind of fascination with the adrenaline that it gave me.

The title of my series is an abbreviation of the sentence “Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos“, which means “as long as we are alive we will see each other“. That was the last sentence Yair said to me, he was a gang leader from Caracas. It’s a phrase tattooed in my heart. The awareness of his own end had something terrible and sublime at the same time. Yair was murdered two months later. I returned several times to Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil) my eyes were alert to the scars of this continent. I met other people there and all of them had to teach me about life and death. All of them led me to try to understand why this continent was prey to a kind of Eros and Thanatos violence.

Photography allowed me to translate this insolent sensuality that sweats.”

Celine Croze  (Interview by Valentine Zeler)

INSOLENT SILENCE

In her series Silence insolent, created in 2021 during her residency in Deauville as a “Tremplin Jeune Talent” of the festival Planche(s) Contact, Celine Croze invites us to travel between the two worlds: “the one before” and “the one after”, in this “turn” that humanity is experiencing today. A personal wandering in Normandy, where metaphors, encounters and rays of light punctuate this “insolent” silence.

She photographs life and its reflection, fragility, grace, melancholy, solitude. We are transported behind closed doors by the muted tones of these images, with a spellbinding writing. translating a fusional and tender approach towards the people she meets and photographs.

INSOLENT SILENCE

Into the night, I dig myself into that unknown place.
The stars show the first step on the stretch of sand and I get lost in it, as in a fragmented body.

Here, the trees cry and the wind scatters the memories. They are prompt explosions, a little ray of light tearing the darkness.

I don’t want to let them go. Iclingtothemasonedoestoasarock that injures.
At the bottom of our sunken city, I oscillate between what is revealed and what disappears. The silent souls pervade the matter.
The nameless arcana invites myself between the two worlds.
I wander towards the unexpected… I stumble into silence.
An insolent silence that conceals everything around me except a truth. The smugglers pave the way towards indefinite sensations. The absence of noise bites the land with grace.
The world is transforming, I go through a metamorphosis.

Celine Croze

NOTHING HAPPENED

POEME /

Niña
He said
You stayed,
You’ve listened to the crying sand
You’ve touched what lied beneath the earth You’ve slept like a slut with the moon You’re not a stranger.
Did you eat death in the earthquake?
I’m sure you did
You are mi nena…
You sweat, you live,
You accepted your vices as the island did. You felt into the rift

Celine Croze

Exhibitions

2022

Insolent Silence

Paris Photo

November 2022

SQEVNV

Sit Down Gallery

June 2022

SQEVNV

Salon Polyptyque, Marseille

August 2022

Celine Croze was born in Casablanca (Morocco) in 1982. She pursued her studies in France where she obtained a Master in Performing Arts, then specialized in cinematographic image at L’ESEC as well as L’EICTV in Cuba. She starts her career as a camera assistant on feature films such as Ixcanul by Jayro Bustamante (Ours d’argent at the Berlinale 2015) or Las herederas by Marcello Martinessi (Ours d’argent at the Berlinale 2018).

Simultaneously, she develops multiple photography and video projects. She participates to workshops organized by the Void gallery with Antoine d’Agata and the publishing house Akina with Kladvij Sluban.

Céline Croze, with her sensibility to the breakages our society goes through, uses the codes of cinema to showcase a story, to transgress her surrounding world and meddle with the cracks of the ones she observes.

Her different works as a photographer have been presented at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie of Fès, at the Billboard Festival Casablanca, at the Biennale of Marrakech and of Paraguay, at the Kassel festival, at the Fuam in Istanbul and at the Fondation de la Photographie oF Tanger.

In 2019 she is the award recipient of the Festival In Cadaqués with her work SQEVNV. In 2020, she obtains the revelation prize of the MAP festival and the Face à la Mer festival with the same series. The same year she is the winner of the Mentor prize with her project Mala Madre. Nominated in 2021 for the Tremplin Jeunes Talents at the Planche(s) Contact festival in Deauville, she won the Public award with her Silence insolent series. In 2022, her book Siempre que published by Lamaindonne Editions, received the Nadar Prize.

Presse

  • “ “Siempre que“, le livre de Celine Croze distingué par le Prix Nadar Gens d’images “, Fisheye, 28 octobre 2022
  • “ Il faut vivre dans le moment Celine Croze “, Like la revue, n°10, automne 2022
  • “ Lamaindonne : Celine Croze : Siempre que “, L’Œil de la photographie, 26 septembre 2022.
  • Sophie Bernard, “ La photo fait sa rentrée à Polyptyque Marseille“, Blind, 7 septembre 2022.
  • Frédérique Martin, “ Siempre que – Celine Croze “, 5, rue du, 28 août 2022
  • Fabien Ribery, “ Des suées de vie-mort-vie, par Celine Croze, photographe “, L’intervalle, 27 août 2022.
  • Anne-Frédérique Fer, “Celine Croze, Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos à la galerie Sit Down, Paris“, Podcast – Interview de Celine Croze, FranceFineArt, juin 2022
  • EyesOpen, publication en ligne, The drifters, Août 2021
  • TK-21 la revue, exposition en ligne Nothing Happened, Juillet 2021
  • Dienacht publishing, exposition en ligne Nothing Happened, Juillet 2021
  • Fisheye magazine, SQEVNV, mai-juin 2021
  • Revue EPIC, SQEVNV, Avril 2021
  • In Frame, interview à propos de SQEVNV, Avril 2021
  • Discarded magazine, exposition en ligne de photographies inédites et non retenues
  • Corridor Elephant, exposition en ligne SQEVNV, Janvier-mars 2021
  • Face à la mer + Reverse Editions, édition d’un Fanzine collectif (avec Ferhat Bouda, Abdo  Shanan, Giulia Frigieri), Décembre 2020
  • Fresh eyes Gup magazine, sélectionnée parmi les 100 talents émergents européens 2020, Juillet 2020
  • Periscopephotoscounting, Claudio Composti, commissaire d’exposition à  la galerie MC2, Milan, Interview live sur SQEVNV, Juin 2020
  • Perimetro, Interview live sur SQEVNV par Sebastiano Leddi, fondateur de la revue Perimetro, Publication web de la série SQEVNV, Juin 2020
  • Face à la mer, Interview live, Avril 2020
  • Cassandre Thomas, “Tant que nous serons en vie nous nous verrons “, Fisheye magazine, Avril 2020