Au Bout du Monde / The End of the World
This series came about during a long road trip across Arizona, Utah and California in 2012 with my friend and fellow artist James Gilbert. The vast scale and lack of human traces create a disorientation, as if one was on another planet, or on a large movie set viewing a post apocalyptical scene - the aftermath of some great reckoning.
The towns in between these expanses have a mixture of old American charm and rugged survivalist values - lotto, guns, ammo, beer. I think of the first European settlers dragging their horses and carts across these wild terrains in search of new lives, often fleeing hardships or famine.
In these images I see both the End of the World and New Beginnings. The current day resurgence of interest in space exploration and the ambitions of starting colonies on the moon and on Mars have echoes with these early settlers. This is where we find ourselves today - facing a scorched earth in distress, in search of new beginnings.
Could these be places we are escaping from or escaping to?
Photos taken in Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Grand Canyon and Yosemite.