Materia Prima, photographs by Hervé Jézéquel, texts by Françoise Paviot (critic) and Violaine Sautter (geologist)

// Photo // publication: November 2024 // L'Atelier des Brisants editions // 144 pages, four-color printing on Fedrigoni paper, hardcover, paperback // bilingual French / English //

Meeting with Hervé Jézéquel Saturday March 15, 2025 in Ísland.

Materia Prima is the new book by photographer Hervé Jézéquel, with contributions from critic Françoise Paviot and geologist Violaine Sautter.

Geologist because here we are talking about matter, earth, rock, sediments in all their variations, shimmers and granularities; my vocabulary on the subject is lacking to describe the subtleties, but the range of variants captured by Hervé Jézéquel seems infinite.

Iceland was "born from the connivance of glaciers and volcanoes," as Violaine Sautter so aptly writes, and Hervé Jézéquel's perspective makes this double matrix readable, the extent of which was already being measured in the Edda (stories of Norse mythology) in the 13th century:

It was at the beginning of time,

While nothingness reigned.

There was no sand, no sea, no icy waves.

There was no earth, nor the highest heaven.

Immense was the abyss,

But no plants grew.

The Edda. Tales of Norse mythology, Snorri Sturluson, early 13th century.

Of old was the age when Ymir lived.

Sea nor cool waves nor sand there were.

Earth had not been, nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.

>>> the film Materia prima (12 min 16)

>>> the film The Drop of Water (4 min)