The film for this project was purchased in China after four years spent traveling the country. It then accompanied me for another four years in India, recording the light, the silences, and the movements of these distant lands. Today, it is traveling to Arles for an artist residency, the final stage of its journey.

To my surprise, manufacturing or preservation flaws have revealed the markings on the 120 film directly onto the images, like so many traces left by their own history.

In the suspended time afforded by this residency, I experiment and photograph, guided by an exploration that is both landscape-based and introspective.

I wander between landscape and legend. On this Roman soil, the figure of Proserpine—goddess of the seasons and renewal—accompanies my reflections. Her story, marked by exile and transformation, fuels my questions about identity and its representations.

More broadly, the symbols associated with sorceresses and their persecution throughout the centuries resonate with this work, where photography becomes a space of metamorphosis, memory, and resistance.

Mélanie Dornier | artiste