© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

What if the real urgency was to realize you were truly seeing? I came across Pierre Rahier's literary work. The intensity of the scenes captures me. I feel engulfed by the possibility of imagining the plot of a novel. As in the series Le silence de la Valleé, I found myself lying on the floor of an old wooden attic on creaking beams and a family album in a trunk. I dive indiscreetly between pages of memories, pieces of other people's stories, which nevertheless feel mine. And my memories now mix with others, like stardust combining into one single extremely reminiscent matter.

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

Le silence de la Valleé is a family journey that stems from a sentimental wandering in a Belgian Wallonia valley. A search for poetry in everyday life fueled by the crossing of the eye and by the presence of one's children. And from fragments of a dispersed naturalness. The flight of birds, the movements of a horse, scents of grass, wood. A gust of wind on the tree canopy. Pierre Rahier's narration borders on the oneiric, the contours of reality fade, the thread of history is lost to embrace an atmosphere. What is the meaning of being in the world? Every little gesture that the camera snatches from the rush of time become immortal from things' transience. I wonder if immortality has anything to do with withholding beauty. To alienate it from the fury of the past that reduces everything to memory.
Le silence de la Valleé projects us on a family's furrow, and an intimate gaze thawed out of the flow of events.

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'Le silence de la Valleé'

With NAMUR, Pierre Rahier exposes himself to the city, to a certainly less bucolic atmosphere, among the streets of a town well dear to him. Here the will is guided by the chance encounters that grab his attention. There is a different grade of opening to the "otherness." There is a curiosity to stop between the faces' wrinkles, between imperceptible stories, between sensations just announced. What is Namur? What are these people that cross my looking? They become part of my existence for a moment. Still a memory, a desire, of time, but this time more disturbing. The diversity that becomes uneasy enters us and manifests itself as part of a show that arises freely in our eyes.

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

While everything flows quickly and incessantly, I feel the illusion that something remains.
Pierre's precious visual harvests created over several years tell us about cautious patience, a prolonged wait, a learning process, and slow maturation. They are visions carefully selected with the awareness that not everything can be kept in life.

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

Pierre told me that his projects surfaced after several years. He had no precise intentions. He mostly likes to go around and takes pictures close to home, or in the city. The family, the people on the streets, nature. There was no narrative intention. So in these cases then editing the pieces together is never easy. Confrontation with the duo Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni helped him settle down the storm of images he had in mind. Maybe this would an interesting book? Who knows? Let's see what happens next while enjoying his poetic glimpses of the world.

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

© Pierre Rahier from the series 'NAMUR'

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LINKS
Pierre Rahier (website)