Narcisse

Narcissus continues an inquiry begun with Toujours là: understanding how a wound shapes an individual over time, and how that trace can resurface, sometimes without the person even realizing it. Here, I draw on a lesser known version of the myth recorded by Pausanias, in which narcissism arises not from vanity but from grief. Narcisse, having lost his twin sister, began gazing at his own reflection in the water to recover, for a fleeting moment, the face of someone he had lost. This reading interests me because it reframes narcissism as a diverted survival mechanism rather than a simple character flaw, a way of staying attached to a loss by endlessly reenacting it.

I transpose this mechanism into a contemporary romantic relationship: Narcissus seeks, in another person, a reflection of himself to love and to control, never able to soothe what remains missing within him. The project traces the progression of this hold through Narcisse's own gaze, until he comes to understand that he is himself a prisoner of his reflection. The photographic series, built from painting, ceramics (masks), and staging, conveys this evolution through the setting's gradual decline and the fragmentation of the mirrors that mark the story.