Frédéric STUCIN
Les interstices
To 03 September
A photographic residency in a psychiatric environment
Autumn 2020. Photographer Frédéric Stucin pushes open the door of La P’tite Cafète in Niort. Adjacent to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, this is a place where patients can spend a few moments, have a drink, eat an ice cream, watch a game on TV, chat with each other or with the nursing staff. One week a month, the photographer will invite them to create, together, “real dream portraits”. A photograph that tells their story, that says what they want to say about themselves at that moment. The aim of this project is to ensure that the outside view is no longer an obstacle, but rather an opportunity to share. We want patients to be seen rather than looked at.
Les Interstices is a project co-constructed by La Villa Pérochon, the psychiatric department of the Niort hospital, the Peppsy association – Prêts et Externalisation pour la Psychiatrie -, la P’tite Cafète and Radio Pinpon. Supported by the Ministère de la Culture – Drac Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the Agence Régionale de Santé de Nou- velle-Aquitaine. A jury made up of La Villa Pérochon staff, hospital staff and patients selected Frédéric Stucin’s “Portrait porte-rêve” project from among 80 applications received in 2020.
Between December 2020 and January 2022, the photographer spent one week a month at La P’tite Cafète. He went to meet the patients. Their stories became the starting point for staged portraits, with the patients becoming the scriptwriters of the photographic creation, combining the real and the imaginary. As the weeks went by, a strong relationship of trust developed with both the patients and the nursing staff. Little by little, other departments that were not involved at the outset joined in the project: the adolescent department, psycho-geriatrics, addictology… Every weekend, a series of prints was produced and shown to all, prompting discussion and debate, reflection and support.
The Interstices, the exhibition and the book are the fruits of this long residency.
The exhibition
The Les interstices exhibition features 80 photographs. Small, trombinoscope-style formats where caregivers mingle with patients, large architectural landscapes set in the meanders of the hospital and large-format “material” portraits in which faces and asperities of the walls merge, the walls transpiring the human environment and the faces the daily life of the premises. A soundtrack recorded by patients using Radio Pinpon’s microphone accompanies the exhibition.
The book
The question of what to do after the Artist Residency soon arose. After the vernissage and the moments of shared joy, the idea of a book quickly took hold. The result is a 120-page book published by Editions Filigranes, which highlights the photographer’s writing and the social, artistic and health-related aspects of this experience.
With a text by Ondine Millot, Les Interstices – the book – brings together some of the photographs presented in the exhibition. Like Frédéric Stucin, Ondine Millot immersed herself in the P’tite Cafète for a week in January 2022, gathering stories and testimonials.
“Our care nestles in the interstices. That’s the phrase used by Éric L. to sum it all up: the packets of one-euro cakes, the drawings and poems on the walls, the Radio Pinpon sessions, the consoling grenadine, the hand on the shoulder, the little joke, the wink, the coffee squeezed for comfort, the glances, just being there. […] The interstices,” says Éric, “to express this listening, this unquantifiable, untraceable attention, which doesn’t fit into Excel spreadsheets, which takes an incalculable amount of human time.”
Practical info
Biography
Frédéric Stucin was born in Nice in 1977 and lives in Paris. A graduate of the decorative arts school in Strasbourg and the École Louis Lumière, he began working as a press photographer in 2002. He collaborates with several media (Libération, Le Monde, L’Équipe, Le Figaro, Vanity Fair, L’Obs, Les Echos, Les Inrocks, Elle, Time Magazine, Stern…), both on portraits and features. At the same time, he pursues his personal work. In 2021, he published La Source(Editions Clémentine de la Féronnière), an exploration of the banks of the Seine, right up to its source, at the time of the first deconfinement. A second monograph released in 2021 – Endorphine, éditions Filigranes – also tackles the theme of the health crisis, through portraits of athletes deprived of their activity. In 2019, he published Only Bleeding (éditions du Bec en l’air, exhibition at galerie Vu’), a story about the wanderings of those left behind by the American dream. He is also a winner of the Prix Eurazéo and the Hangar Photo Art Center with his series Le Décor.