Axelle Emden Photography

A WAY

MY WAYS ELSEWHERE OR PERSONAL WORKS ON EARTH
PRINTS ON DEMAND

HAUNTING LIGHTS

LOS ANGELES

CALIFORNIA, USA

2014

Dix jours à sillonner la ville à la lumière transperçante.

La ville détestée où marcher est suspect. La ville au réseau de transport démantelé dans le but de vendre des voitures.
La ville du MOCA. La ville d'Hollywood. La ville interdite aux piétons et aux bus habités par les sans-abris.

La ville sublime de l'Ouest, le monstre urbain titanesque, sa lumière qui m'éblouit, et je tombe amoureuse de ses alentours : Los Angeles est invivable et sublime, un peu plus loin je ne veux plus rentrer.

A Special Thanx to Matt for many rides

FAIRIES TELL

BRITTANY

FRANCE

2019

On my way to find a home,

I've been sent to Brittany, where I settled.

Angels sent me there.

They are called Caroline, Olivier, Virginie and Gaëlle.

They talked about music, travel, people.

And about something that can't be said,

something we might call vibes.

I knew right away. The first time I got there.

Reasons I cannot tell were stronger

than reasons I could name.

The Rock gathers a few shots taken in Saint-Malo,

in May 2019.

THE SPOILS

BARCELONA

SPAIN

2016 -2019

Il paraît que ceux qui la quittent y reviennent. J'ignore si je l'ai quittée. J'ignore si j'y ai habité. Elle a été ma deuxième ville. Trois ans.

Elle a été la taille humaine.

La ville la plus internationale d'Europe.

Elle m'a réconcilié avec la ville.

Elle m'a offert son soleil. Deux expositions. Combien d'appartements. Elle est ce que l'on attend d'elle. Je trouve que c'est déjà beaucoup.

The Spoils is a song by Massive Attack.

FLY AWAY

CHINA

BEIJING / SHANGHAI / GHANGZHOU

2008

A month, one country, three cities.

I tried to meet her, the country.

I think I failed.

I don't know who's to blame.

TRAVELING LIGHT

MENORCA

BALEARES, SPAIN
2016-2017

C'est une chanson de Leonard Cohen.

C'est un hiver et il est mort. C'est une île à une heure d'avion de Barcelone. C'est l'appartement du port. C'est une vue sur la mer qui ressemble à un lac. Des maisons anglaises en face, des restes d'histoire enfouis au milieu du vert. C'est habiter au milieu de la mer. Le phénomène insulaire. Je ne crois pas qu'on en revienne. De l'île. C'est un possible que j'emporte depuis partout avec moi.

TO FIND A HOME

FRANCE

2019

I've been taking a few trains to find my next home - funny the keyboard just wrote my next hope... In my own country that I know and don't, I was looking for a place where freedom could settle, and found out it might always be another adventure, just as these last six years of nomadism - I have no idea how much time my next home is gonna last...

PLAYLIST

Waves - Camille

To Build a Home - Cinematic Orchestra

Taline Nanig - Ara Malikian

Something this bright should explode - B. Hartshorn

Quartier des Lunes - Eddy de Pretto

Elle rêve encore - Hoshi

Prisoner of the road - Sivert Høyem

DIRTY THREE

BASSE NORMANDIE

PROVENCE ALPES CÔTE D'AZUR

BOUCHES DU RHÔNE

FRANCE

2012

La route, Tourgeville. Deauville, Trouville. La route, Venelles. Puyricard, Lourmarin, Venelles. Gordes. Arles.

A partir d'un été français, j'ai créé une série initiée en 2012 et nourrie depuis par des images de traverses. Trouville. Une escapade seule. Un hôtel. Le besoin de voir la mer en hiver. 2013. Quitter Paris aux lendemains éreintant d'un tournage inutile. Perpignan. Où j'ai vécu deux mois au milieu de six années nomades. Les trains. 2017. La Normandie encore. Basse. Villerville. 2015. Les images de mon pays me sont familières. Douloureuses souvent. Home is where it hurts. Il paraît.

Dirty Three est une histoire de violons et de piano formée par Nick Cave et Warren Ellis.

NARNIA PARIS

Mars 2018. A trois jours du printemps la neige tombe sur Paris. Au retour d'un rendez-vous derrière les grilles le parc m'appelle, désert. L'urgence d'arrêter le temps. Immédiatement avant que l'heure du déjeuner ne vienne encombrer les vues avec cet enfer que sont les autres.

L'espace a été ma cour de récréation, les balançoires en bas de mon enfance, le quotidien gâté en bleu marine. Envie de le transformer. Et de le montrer tel qu'il est : fantôme réel et fantastique...

NARNIA PARIS

March 2018.

Three days from Spring and snow is falling on the city. I'm freezing but the park seems empty and, in a few minutes lunch time will probably erase what I see through that hell called others.

Know this place since forever and again it's a new land I'm walking on.

Then comes the temptation of drawing my own garden, the one of my childhood and the one of today : both are a discovery, both might be a fantasy...

Ce sont des instants de magie volés dans la vitesse de la ville des anges, au milieu de la mer d'une île sacrée, derrière une fenêtre encore fermée.

Des secondes volées sur la route.

Sur Terre.

Rien ne relie ces images entre elles,

que le sentiment pas dicible d'appartenir

à l'espace et au temps.

Une certitude archaïque

qui finit par devenir le Big Bang

à l'intérieur de moi.

AWAY IS ALWAYS ON THE ROAD

AILLEURS SUR LA ROUTE SUR la TERRE

Some Traveling Music - FRANK SINATRA

00:0000:00

I started traveling when I was twelve. It was terrifying but I asked for it. It was not far but I didn't know anything about the place I'd be. Didn't know anyone. That's what I wanted. You don't know until you're actually there - and then what do you know anyway ? Can we know anything ?

I was alone but I asked for it. I guess I wanted life to start somehow. I started traveling when I was a baby, but I can't remember the first planes and trains and cars, and I believe traveling is breaking up with any comfort zone so I don't consider these travels as travels. I don't even believe that a plane, a car or a train makes you travel. I believe the trip is around the corner, I believe life is about the journey and after years now without any house, I can say I made it somehow. I wanted, and I still want, to be free. I wanted to try, as I don't think we can do much more than that. I wanted to live with what I needed. I wanted to figure out what I needed. Everything is at the storage. Since 2013. Maybe a storage prevents you from being a true nomad. I don't really care, I just know I didn't want to throw away a thousand books, my grandma's glasses and my red desk. Among many, many other things. I've been raised in your society. Where things are more than things. I've been raised in things I love and I've been taught to take care of them, because they are expensive, and because nothing matters more than time, and time is not money, but things are. I was a spoiled child. It was written on a black sweater designed by Sonia Rykiel, and I was wearing it. The more I grow up, the more I am questioning what spoiled means. All I know is what my friend Stella used to say : a house is too heavy to be carried on your back. All I know is I created many houses in others' houses, and I also know I need mine now. A house I never had. A house after years without a house is something I never had.

I don't even know in how many apartments and houses I've been living since five years. I know a new neighborhood can be more new than a new country. I know I learned more on the road than at university. I know I needed this. No space waiting for me. It makes it easy to say yes, when a new city comes up. I agree now. Not to know anything. Except we're gonna die one day. And we don't even know when. I knew this before. Agreed on this before. I just didn't agree the way I do (k)now.

I started photography, as most of us, while traveling. I kept starting. I kept traveling. I think I won't find what I'm looking for. But it's okay. What I'll find sailing will be what it will be.

Away gathers landscapes and people from different times in my life. It's just a way to share seconds in one existence. Nothing. A singer I love, known as Nobody, says we're nothing, and nothing is everything...

Axelle Emden

PHOTOGRAPHIE

A WAY

MY WAYS ELSEWHERE OR PERSONAL WORKS ON EARTH
PRINTS ON DEMAND

AWAY IS ALWAYS ON THE ROAD

AILLEURS SUR LA ROUTE SUR la TERRE

I started traveling when I was twelve. It was terrifying but I asked for it. It was not far but I didn't know anything about the place I'd be. Didn't know anyone. That's what I wanted. You don't know until you're actually there - and then what do you know anyway ? Can we know anything ?

I started photography, as most of us, while traveling. I kept starting. I kept traveling. I think I won't find what I'm looking for. But it's okay. What I'll find sailing will be what it will be.

Away gathers landscapes and people from different times in my life. It's just a way to share seconds in one existence. Nothing. A singer I love, known as Nobody, says we're nothing, and nothing is everything...

AWAY IS JUST A WAY YOU KNOW

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING WITH EYES ON EARTH

A WAY

MY WAYS ELSEWHERE OR PERSONAL WORKS ON EARTH PRINTS ON DEMAND

AWAY IS ALWAYS ON THE ROAD

AILLEURS SUR LA ROUTE SUR la TERRE

​

I started traveling when I was twelve. It was terrifying but I asked for it. It was not far but I didn't know anything about the place I'd be. Didn't know anyone. That's what I wanted. You don't know until you're actually there - and then what do you know anyway ? Can we know anything ?

I started photography, as most of us, while traveling. I kept starting. I kept traveling. I think I won't find what I'm looking for. But it's okay. What I'll find sailing will be what it will be.

Away gathers landscapes and people from different times in my life. It's just a way to share seconds in one existence. Nothing. A singer I love, known as Nobody, says we're nothing, and nothing is everything...

​

​

AWAY IS JUST A WAY YOU KNOW

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING WITH EYES ON EARTH

MY WAYS ELSEWHERE OR PERSONAL WORKS ON EARTH
PRINTS ON DEMAND