VOLCANOES

VULCÕES is a paper installation produced in 2025 for the new studio of the association Assembler du Dehors — Atelier 01 Belleville. It's a collage piece created with images of volcanos from all around the world, taken from the book — "Des Volcans et des Hommes" by Philippe Bourseiller (Photographie) and Philippe Durieux (author). The book focuses on volcanoes as living organisms, “Witnesses of a world in formation, volcanoes have long given rise to beliefs and superstitions.
Manifestations of the wrath of the gods in certain civilizations, celebrated instead as a source of life and a sign of divine clemency, as in Indonesia, they have accompanied the history of mankind since their earliest days. While eruptive activity is less present in memories, it nevertheless remains at the heart of scientists' concerns. We now know how volcanoes work and we are more aware of their sometimes unexpected effects.

 Since 1980, major eruptions, those of Piton de la Fournaise, Kilauea, Pinatubo, or Rabaul, have changed our attitude towards volcanic risks, each having brought its share of experiences and knowledge. It is sometimes possible to limit the damage by equipping the threatened mountain, valleys, or cities. But if volcanoes no longer kill as they did a hundred years ago, they remain a threat to our modern societies. Philippe Bourseiller, accompanied by Jacques Durieux, visited all the major volcanic sites on the planet, from Iceland to Hawaii, from Indonesia to Réunion, from Vanuatu to the African Rift, from Mexico to Ecuador! His photographs tell a story that began with the beginning of the world: craters, solfataras, mud pots, lava fields, fumaroles. Volcanoes are the spectacle of our dynamic Earth, at the origin of numerous landscapes, often representative of a primordial nature.