















This story begins at the end of a sunny day spent relaxing on the beach at the Belgian coast. Trying to find my way back home, a new world opened up to me. As in a nightmare, the leisurely seaside was suddenly replaced by a deserted industrial port. Here, sand is extracted in huge quantities from seabeds and sea coasts by frightening metal monsters. In this artificially mountainous scenery, this grey gold waits to be transformed to build our concrete cities. By provoking the disparition of the biodiversity and of the rising sea levels natural protection to offer seaside residences to people that are exactly attracted by the coastal beauty, this situation perfectly portray the paradoxes of our consumerist occidental world. A world in which machines are in control and humans are increasingly denying their innate connection with nature.
Far from there, a few Moroccans countryside dwellers still resist this reality. Defending their traditional constructions, where the earth - that is dug to build the foundations - is reused directly to build the house itself. No massive extraction, no long transportation, no environmental disaster. Here, centenary earth-based houses made of mud, clay and reeds are slowly melting to return to earth.
While this art of living transmitted through generations seems to disappear confronted with a certain craze for the western way of life, would it be inconceivable to imagine that these last testimonies of vernacular life would become the inspiration source of the young generation to build our future world ? »
This photographic research explores our way of using soils for our constructions between modernity, traditions and novelties into the heart of materiality. Through the Moroccan and Belgian cinematographic landscapes, a new world seems to slowly emerge.
2020










This story begins at the end of a sunny day spent relaxing on the beach at the Belgian coast. Trying to find my way back home, a new world opened up to me. As in a nightmare, the leisurely seaside was suddenly replaced by a deserted industrial port. Here, sand is extracted in huge quantities from seabeds and sea coasts by frightening metal monsters. In this artificially mountainous scenery, this grey gold waits to be transformed to build our concrete cities. By provoking the disparition of the biodiversity and of the rising sea levels natural protection to offer seaside residences to people that are exactly attracted by the coastal beauty, this situation perfectly portray the paradoxes of our consumerist occidental world. A world in which machines are in control and humans are increasingly denying their innate connection with nature.
Far from there, a few Moroccans countryside dwellers still resist this reality. Defending their traditional constructions, where the earth - that is dug to build the foundations - is reused directly to build the house itself. No massive extraction, no long transportation, no environmental disaster. Here, centenary earth-based houses made of mud, clay and reeds are slowly melting to return to earth.
While this art of living transmitted through generations seems to disappear confronted with a certain craze for the western way of life, would it be inconceivable to imagine that these last testimonies of vernacular life would become the inspiration source of the young generation to build our future world ?
This photographic research explores our way of using soils for our constructions between modernity, traditions and novelties into the heart of materiality. Through the Moroccan and Belgian cinematographic landscapes, a new world seems to slowly emerge.
2020