JUNGLES

Jungles
Olivia Lavergne, Bérengère Cournut

Jungles gathers different series made by photographer Olivia Lavergne over ten years. The book is built according to a principle inspired by cinema, a fluid montage of images that conveys the unfolding narrative. The large format accentuates the effect of immersion in the immense landscapes where the action takes place. We follow in the footsteps of a mysterious young woman, dressed as an urban dweller who goes deep into the forest...

In the middle appears an amazing gallery of illuminated trees. Those images are accompanied with an unprecedented and magical short story written by novel writer Bérengère Cournut which resonates in deep echo with Olivia Lavergne's photographs. Then the third part of the book takes the reader in the wake of a Mentawaï family (called the flower men). The photographs' vibrant light gives an atmosphere suspended between reality and imagination, and conveys an intimate knowledge of the inhabited jungle like an immense garden.

The book Jungles, anchored in the so contemporary question of the relationship between nature and human beings, explores a new editorial genre that would be to photography what storytelling is to literature.

Jungles's foreword is written by Xavier Canonne, director of Museum of Photography in Charleroi.

« Were it not for the strange glimmers illuminating and probing the depths of these jungles, they might appear to be empty of all human presence. The chaos of the forest, startled by the lens in what appears to be stillness, reveals all its diversity, the merest flower, the merest leaf, a spontaneous hierarchy that man attempts to dominate, a world whose troubling power preceded him and which he must subdue. »

Excerpt of Xavier Canonne's foreword

« It was him I saw first, as he was coming towards me. He was wearing a red cloth knotted on his head and around his hips. He was barefoot, carrying a machete. And yet he wasn't cutting anything, nor did he appear to be searching for anything in particular. He looked like he was musing about something other than himself - in the jungle. »

Excerpt of Bérengère Cournut's unpublished story

To know more, listen to Olivia Lavergne's interview about her photographic work and book :

Technical features

• Release date : 6 may 2021
• Photographs : Olivia Lavergne
• Text : Bérengère Cournut
• Foreword : Xavier Canonne
• English translation : Ruth Diver
• Graphic design : Nolwen Lauzanne
• Bilingual version: french, english
• Book format 25 x 33 cm / Weight : 950 gr
• 96 pages – 46 photographs
• Print run of 1000 copies
• Sewn, glued, square spine
• Leatherlike hard book cover
• Photographs printed on Symbol Tatami 150 gr (80 pages) and text printed on Fedrigoni Woodstock BEtulla 140 gr (16 pages) + endpapers on Sirio Cherry 150 gr
• ISBN: 9791095118169
• Public price (TTC) : 39 euros

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