FACESCAPES summary

FACESCAPES

denis piel

FACESCAPES explores the commonality of the human condition in different parts of the world.

The FACESCAPES project is made up of both photos and film used together and separately,

each FACESCAPE to be done in a different village in a different part of the world.

In Each village approx thirty to forty five people from various economic and social backgrounds will participate talking about their life experience.

The first three of the series, based in Lempaut France, Jui Xing in China and Evans Head in Australia have been executed.

The film “FACESCAPES latitude 43.533333 longitude 2.06666” based in Lempaut, a small village in South-West France has been completed.

The next FACESCAPES will be a village in USA and Brazil which are in the planning stages for 2008.

This will be followed by villages in Iran, Kenya, and Iceland.

Each FACESCAPE will be made up of

PHOTOS:

Following a humanist tradition of getting in close on the subject to reveal the traces of life,

FACESCAPES are very large close up photographic images presenting landscapes of peoples faces, faces as a field -- a topography of flesh.

A way of looking at the mileage of the human clock, another way of measuring time.

They illustrate how life has left it’s mark - how time and experience changes a face just as time,

weather and human intervention change the topography of the landscapes we inhabit.

They are abstracted images of the facve and life itself.

The eyes are closed, shutting us out from any possible interiority,reasserting that the surface is impenetrable

and emphasising the commonality of the human condition.

Race, religion, or social strata have no importance. Inherent humanity becomes the common denominator.

The face is a place of infinite projection and empathy.

The photos are the FACESCAPES, landscapes of the person’s face.

FILM:

Each film brings together the filmed interviews showing the subjects talking very simply about their life experience,

cut together with the still PHOTO images (FACESCAPES) of these same subjects to form an intimate portrait of a fairly typical small village in each country.