GOUFFRES (Chasms) by Matthieu Kavyrchine From 09 june to saturday 09 july 2011 A luminous cable crosses the spaces of a natural and underground architecture, revealing and connecting them.

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The Cable series explores the sea shores of the entire world, searching for signs of underwater cables. By documenting the arrival points, these images suggest a secret space: the long progression of the cable over thousands of kilometres, placed at the mercy of marine depths. The Gouffres (Chasms) series is a response, a backing to this imaginary.

A luminous cable crosses the spaces of a natural and underground architecture, revealing and connecting them. The light has no point of origin, it is linear, emitted by a cable which seems to have no beginning or end. In the absence of usual reference points, the eyes have a hard time grasping the scale of what they perceive. We are plunged into a world without temporal or spatial measure. No man has ever determined its form. It is a primitive site, which escapes architechtural drawing but which paradoxically crosses over into contemporary preoccupations of biomorphic architecture.

A strange sensation emerges. The basement can be the site of refuge, of withdrawal, of simple protection from bad weather, of an anti-atomic shelter. It can be a site of richness, of the precious minerals it locks in. But it is also and maybe mostly, associated with fears and archaic curiosity. It is the site where one risks being swallowed up, physically and fantastically. Substracted from the gaze, it fascinates. But in this mineral universe, where all forms of life, whether animal or vegetable, seem excluded, the light produced by the cable creates a movement and enlivens the site at the same time as it seems to carry the echo of absence.

The cable was places in the Arcy-sur-Cure grottos in Burgundy. With the friendly authorization and participation of François de la Varende.