Exposition "Les enfants de Gaïa" et autres photographies de Michel Joly

Les enfants de Gaïa" exhibition and other photographs by Michel Joly.
Les enfants de GaÏa is a series of hybrid portraits based on a collection of geological material taken from different parts of the Burgundy vineyards in partnership with the geologist Françoise Vannier.

In this series, GaÏa's children are the multitude of men and women who, over the centuries, have exploited this geological diversity to grow the fruit that gives the wines extracted from it their richness. Symbolised by portraits of anonymous winegrowers, they are deliberately relegated to the background, but nonetheless assert the link that exists between man and the land they work.
This series can be read on several levels.

Firstly, it appeals to the child in all of us, bringing back the friendly (or not so friendly!) monsters that populate our imaginations. Then there's the reaffirmation that our earth was built up over several million years, providing a huge diversity of soils. In the end, accompanied by the captions (in the form of an identity card) of Françoise Vannier, geologist and specialist in wine-growing soils, it explores the diversity of the soils and sub-soils of the Burgundy vineyards which, through the hand of man, have given the richness and renown of its terroir wines.

This series is part of what is known as "hybrid photography". They are then printed on matte photo paper in A3 format. On these prints, I arrange a sample of soil or rock specific to a given terroir. These samples are taken from all over wine-growing Burgundy. Ranging from the remains of tropical soil to granite rock (Massif Central type), via the remains of an underwater world, they represent the different organic and temporal origins of the soil and subsoil of this region. Finally, I re-photograph this juxtaposition to create a new image, charged with a new meaning, for a personal narrative of Burgundy's terroirs.