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EUROPIA

Burst landscape of an uncertain Europe

From April 2014 to October 2017, I was traveling through Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal,
Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Ireland, UK, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, Bulgaria,
Romania, Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg and came back to Paris...
Europia, Burst landscape of an uncertain Europe Europia / Julien Allouf

Initiated two years ago, this project
is intended to be a living body,
to have its structure and breathing,
it will always be a work in progress,
moving, standing the test of time,
of the upcoming events..

Europia / L’Etat des choses

«Europe is at a crossroads. Refugee flows and Islamist terrorism have plunged the continent into the greatest crisis since the Second World War. In a world that works by excluding entire regions and populations, is it so surprising that societies are collapsing, that men are radicalizing or aspiring to join Europe? It is not a clash of civilizations but a new class struggle. This is why we must defend the European values, which are the only ones able to fight against the economic causes of migratory flows and terrorism. Such global solidarity may be utopian, but if we do not commit to it, then we deserve to be lost.»
Slavoj Zizek, 2015

Julien Allouf, Europia Exhibition

Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal,
Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Ireland,
UK, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Finland, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania,
Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany,
Holland, Luxembourg, France

In the heart of all the crises we are going through: economic, political, «migratory», identity related..., the idea of Europe, of a union, of european values... is disappearing behind its own myth and institutions that seem to be more and more distant and unreal. In this performance crisis, despite its blurred edges, Europe seems to reassert itself building walls, turning inwards and fearing the foreigners as if it was the only way to reunite an uncertain union .
Out of this observation arose the desire to leave, see for myself and let things happen around me, travel through the every day life of Europe of the 28 capitals (27 today), to let a sensitive landscape emerge from this «territory» we are part of.
Let things emerge.
This is what it is about.
Open up the possibility for emergence. And why not the emergence of an utopia. The pictures brought back from those trips are traces, mirrors of the «world» we evolve in, a way to take time to ask ourself again if this union can still be a Utopia or not.

An installation bringing together the pictures taken through the 28 european capitals will take place in La comédie de Reims, CDN from 29th January 2018 during the festival Reims scènes d’Europe.

travel Europe Julien Allouf Julien Allouf photographer

«Things will change for us.
But nothing is decided yet.
We are both poor and rich.
And it is hardly possible to say
to what extent exactly
we are one or the other.»
Ernest Bloch

Europia, Burst landscape of an uncertain Europe photographie Julien Allouf

«The collapse would be sudden, and perhaps total and definitive.
A positive development, on the other hand, would take time and remain imperfect. If our generation were up to the task, it would not be, before long, Paradise on earth. But history could continue to follow its course, with new crises, new turns ...
Things would continue and it would already be a lot. The fight, the uncertainty, the anguish, the errors, everything would continue. We will not be able to find rest. Rest does not exist until the end. And after?
Even in the end, still remains a question mark.»
Klaus Mann, 1933

L’Etat des choses, photos