TITLE: Mike, Day by Day

The series of photographs Mike, Day after Day calls for a meeting with the Other, the exploration of his thoughts as well as an immersion in a world of poetic imagination. Mike was part of the invisible in today’s society, by turning the light on him, an accompanying work was done allowing him to explore his creativity through scenes inspired by reality or fiction. This series of intimate portraits with vaporous and ambiguous atmospheres, exacerbated by chiaroscuro proposes to follow his personal journey and to give him a share of artistic recognition. The lens of the camera came to pierce the intimacy of his nights when, inspired by the moonlight, he spent all his time smoking along the Marne-Rhine canal, writing in a frantic and uninterrupted manner in large format notebooks. Born in the city of Le Marais, near Strasbourg, plagued by boredom, he had found his outlet in the elaboration of rap texts which he interpreted with passion. By investing in this series of photographs, he expressed the wish to show his evolution: that of a young man at the dawn of his thirties, inactive, who by taking an interest in art and developing his ability to create, began to come to terms with himself and give meaning to his daily life. By expressing his idleness and his anger in the reinterpretation of scenes from dramatic films like "La Haine" by Mathieu Kassowitz or by revisiting the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, Mike shows us his initiatory journey towards knowledge of arts and the wish to raise spiritually. Writing is also an endless thread that leads to resilience. By sublimating his sufferings, by transforming them into marvelous and captivating experiences in his creative imagination, he simply strives to make them tolerable in reality.

AUTHOR: Jeannette Gregori (France)

Jeannette Gregori was born in 1967 and now lives in Strasbourg, France. She studied photography at the University of Fine Arts, Indiana, in the US and the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. Chance ad curiosity led to her getting to know a group of Romai families settled along a departmental road in Alsace, France in the summer of 2009. Her work since has sought to depict the engaging characters she came to know from these families and the humanity she saw in these people in the face of prejudices. Today, if she remains attached to this cause, she gradually opens to other society topics over the course of her experiences. Photography allows her to give the invisible in today's society some recognition . She also teaches photography in high schools and brings young students to produce photographic works associated with creative writing.