THE BOOKS OF ISLANDS : The Month of Ghosts - 2010
I started taking pictures for The Month of Ghosts in 2010 in Taiwan. Working on assignment for a French travel magazine, I was wandering through the island's tourist locations.
When I had some spare time, I played a game of scouting "non places" and "in between" moments with a strong feeling of absence. I'm specially interested in photography's capability of figuring absence, to represent what makes the absence solid, what makes memories manifest. When traveling and whenever it is possible, I often try to look for places where everybody told me there’s absolutely nothing to see.
Most of the pictures in the series were taken this way.
In Taiwan, the Month of Ghosts is a major spiritual event. During that time of the year, traditionally, people try to appease the dead, rather than trying to banish them, by inviting them temporarily into the world of the living and make offerings.
I realized that while Taiwanese people were trying to appease their ghosts I was in search of my own personal ones.
