Claire Fasulo

Fears and anxieties are often at the root of Claire Fasulo’s work. Since 2017, she has been crafting the Errances (Wanderings) series, for which she summons up the spaces, atmospheres and situations that oppress her, and which she decides to confront. “Attirance-Répulsion” (Attraction-Repulsion) is part of this same approach. Following the first lockdown, when the world was struggling to get back into gear, the fairground men and women took up residence on the Esplanade du Champ de Mars in Lille. In the midst of that public health situation, festive spirits were rare. It was in this sparse crowd that Claire Fasulo decided to focus her lens. Alone, in the near empty aisles of the event, the photographer sought to capture that suspended moment where vivid colours, candy-floss smells, and laughter trespass on the weight of the moment. In her shots, the artificial lights of the empty attractions cut through the sky, emerging like mirages in the immensity of the desert. To accompany this photographic series, Claire Fasulo has composed a soundtrack in which the noises escaping from the carnival intermingle with the beating of her anxious heart. The atmosphere is heavy  and the 16:9 format borrowed from cinema increases Claire Fasulo’s distance from the object photographed. We stand on the edge, at the heart of an oxymoron, unable to know which feeling to trust. 

Text by Camille Bardin, independent art critic and curator, member of the Jeunes Critiques d’Art collective