In Animaa colorful work, the photographer Mathieu Richer Mamousse captures pilgrimages from around the world, and the costumes of the faithful. A singular reading of spirituality, and of its universality.
Seville, Lourdes, Stonehenge, Port-au-Prince, colorful processions, velvet finery, flowery dresses… In the photographs of Mathieu Richer Mamousse, under the rays of a warm sun, the bodies mingle, the party resounds and the faces surrender, giving themselves over to exaltation – that of the group or that of the faith. Everywhere, the costumes, the clothes, the accessories sparkle and adorn the human parades with a sacred dimension. Like a halo of fabrics, patterns marrying the forms of spirituality. It was a bit by chance that the photographer from the south of France discovered the 8e art. First studying language and literature, he discovered, during an exchange in the United States, the creative potential of the medium. “I was taking an art class there, and I took a big slap thanks to a photographer who was teaching. At the time, I was looking for a way to bring together several things: art, graphics, but also important themes, and a way to take a certain look at the world. he remembers.
Back in France, the author begins an apprenticeship in a school, but quickly stops when he begins to work in the studio. Assistant photographer, he cut his teeth, learned the intricacies of the trade, and discovered the demands of the fashion world. A writing that influences his personal projects today – in particular Anima. Because created between 2017 and 2019, the corpus of images explores the notion of pilgrimage through a singular prism: clothing. “At the time of starting this project, I was shooting for advertising, and I wanted to get into documentaries. I was very interested in spirituality then. Looking for more information, I discovered Holy Week, in Seville, and decided to go”, explains the artist. A first experience that pushes him to continue his search for celebrations. Oscillating between commissions and his own explorations, he then embarked on a journey, financing his project with the help of his commercial creations. “I like the idea that the funds have been raised with another photography practice: I like to wander between these two fields”, he specifies.
Traditions that stand the test of time
Enclosed in a book with a red cover and a gilded title, the photographs of Mathieu Richer Mamousse are teeming with minute details, professions of faith as discreet as they are obvious. As the pages go by, we get lost. As if location didn’t matter. Everywhere, the faces of believers reflect serenity, abandonment. Like a common trance hoisting itself up to the skies thanks to the impulse of the world, and of others. And it is precisely these resonances that the photographer intends to sublimate. “I have always been very touched by faith, by those who believe, who put their hope in something. I wanted to show the universality of religious facts. Because if everything comes together, the same questions emerge: life, death, how to behave in society… So I created a kind of patchwork. The purpose of this book? It is not to make an inventory, nor to question the belief, but to show this universality through the prism of the garment”, says the author.
At the borders of the documentary and the intimate, far from any anthropological will, Anima then praises the “everything”, a whole with multiple nuances and common echoes. Taken on film, the images are never staged, reflecting a desire to capture the event in the most total purity, in its most disturbing sincerity. Magnified by the warm films used by Mathieu Richer Mamousse – “which also evoke the pictorial representations of the saints in the paintings”, he remarks – the clothes take on a sacred dimension. True protagonists, these costumes also recall the immortality of traditions that have stood the test of time: “The transmission is very important during these festivals, the clothes are recovered, passed through the generations”, adds the photographer. Headdresses, jewels, fans, masks, belts… In this whirlwind of accessories, colors, joy and adoration, the tracks become blurred, and the immersion is total. Beyond borders, Anima manages to encapsulate a detonating emulsion. A “quite beautiful collective trance”, whose communicative force easily reaches us.
AnimaEditions Atelier Bergère, €37, 60 p.
© Mathieu Richer Mamousse