Antoine Lecharny: Ano Meria
Wandering is the key feeling permeating the series ‘Ano Meria’ by Antoine Lecharny when seen first and without any background knowledge. Looking around, continuously moving, hectically searching for something or someone. Though there seem to be occasional stops in narration which bring more focus, things are hardly clear and start to seem repeated, as if someone is wandering in circles around the same place. And the search itself proves hopeless. Both are true. The place is Ano Meria, a tiny village on the Greek island of Folegandrosis. And the work is about the loss and absence of the loved one.
About the series
I let my arms down in anger against the fragile walls of my flesh, no longer knowing how to find in the darkest night of my body enough forces and enough foolish strength to please you again. As you live within me now as a house of blood, my hands are made quivery by your shadow and my nails are torn upside down but I carry on with my hard way to find your path and your mouth, a muddled forest of flesh where words are hidden. And if only you knew that I will not surrender to your death, I will go to Ano Meria in August with you, and we will try on divas’ gloves, in aubergine or taupe, as everything suits you.
Ano Meria is a work about the loss and absence of the one I loved. For several months I returned to the places where we had been together and travelled to the places we wanted to go, wandering continuously around Ano Meria, the place of our last summer.
About the photographer
Antoine Lecharny is a photographer and visual artist born in 1995. When he was 20 years old, he went to Transylvania to photograph and share the daily life of Roma families on the outskirts of Deva. This work was awarded at the Grand Prix Paris Match for Photography.
Then Antoine Lecharny gets rid of a purely documentary intention without ever ceasing to pay attention to the singularity of the people and the places they inhabit. He then started more intimate projects, like ‘Même pas Morts’ or ‘Ano Meria’, during which he sought to transcribe inner feelings. These two works respectively received the public award of the Boutographies and became finalist of the HSBC Prize 2021.
Alongside his photographic work, Antoine has been practicing drawing and sculpture for years. Together with the artist Henri Frachon, he will exhibit in November 2021 his latest sculptural project ‘Abstract design manifesto’ at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris.
Website
antoinelecharny.com
