Simon Johannin

We wished to open the gaze by associating words. Writers were invited to accompany these photographers’ work, through sensitive and spontaneous writing, which invites one to look beyond the surface of the pictures. 

Claude Nori, who has published many legendary photographers, as well as Jean-Baptiste Andrea, novelist and director, agreed to play our game. Léna Mauger, journalist and editor-in-chief for 6Mois and XXI magazines, as well as Simon Johannin, also gladly accepted our invitation.

Simon Johannin is a novelist and poet.

When he was 23 years old, he published his first novel « L’été des charognes”, then in 2020 Simon published his first book of poetry “Nous sommes maintenant nos êtres chers” with Allia publisher.

In an interview for France Inter, Simon said the following:

“I can’t see myself doing things without this intensity, even if it means I overflow a little sometimes. I need things to overflow, for things to fuse and gush. I relate to art through my senses. I’m not really in the intellect very much. It has to go through my body. I need to feel things physically. The book of poems is poetry that mainly comes from sensations.”  

Céline Croze asked Simon to write on her ADIEXODO series (impasse in Greek) for Réflexivité(s). In March 2017 Céline arrived in the Exarchia neighbourhood in Athens, where she felt like she was diving both into disorder and into the birth of a new world.

Extract from the text written by Simon for Céline:

“Bonds are gnawed to the bone by time and dogs’ pity. Yet despite all, something still hangs together. Stars are born from chaos, and things here were built before their time, preceding their light, then destroyed, to finally be rebuilt in the dark.”

Here at Réflexivité(s) we are proud of having united these two great artists for this exhibition, which is an absolute must-see.