IMPULSE MAGAZINE

What is the first thing a photograph forgets? When asked, Emmanuelle Fructus explains that “photography offers us a unique experience of activating forgetting and making it perceptible at the very moment of viewing . . . fragments of forgotten lives can be set in motion, in complete freedom.”

When she first moved to Saint-André-lez-Lille, the echoes of old textile factories and coal mines inspired Fructus’s research into the region’s history. For her residency project, the artist explores labor exploitation as she divides her figures into two, then later pieces them together with archival photograph remnants, evoking the “alteration and fragility of bodies subjected to harsh working conditions.” The only sounds in her studio are the snip of scissors and the recorded voices of local residents sharing testimonies and local history. “The images,” she shares, “create enough noise all on their own.”

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