Grand scale design in Corsica

At the end of March, a truck loaded with furniture, lighting and objects left Paris for Corsica. On the island, it was joined by a production van outfitted with a small office, batteries and minimal comforts. After several hours of location scouting, the photo shoot for this design series lasted three days in the far South of Corsica. Bonifacio and Porto-Vecchio may just be 30 kilometers apart, but the two vehicles racked up more than 600 kilometers, as the crew crisscrossed the area, from the Ospédale forest to the Coscione plateau. They never strayed more than a half-hour walk from a road since all the photo equipment, tables, armchairs and assistants – who wore chairs strapped to their torsos like backpacks – had to be transported on foot.

One morning, around 5 am, set designer Vincent Olivieri, who knows the region well, took a boat out to see if they could photograph furniture on one of the small Lavezzi Islands. However, the raging sea and three-meter swells persuaded them not to land. On another day, “at 1,500 meters altitude, we made a fire and grilled some delicious sausages we’d bought in the village. Wrapped up in down jackets and shrouded in mist, we had a picnic there,” said Olivieri, who cherishes this time of year before summer arrives in Corsica: “In just a few kilometers and a few hours, you experience all four seasons.” Rain, heat, wind, shifting skies – the weather was as varied as the extraordinary landscapes captured in black and white and color by Alexandre Guirkinger with a large-format camera.

“It really is the best camera for this kind of situation,” he explained. “You connect to the landscape more directly. Physically. And what you see in close-up, like that chair on the beach, seems to spring out of the image. The sculptural quality of the object, stripped of its utilitarian function, confronts the landscape, creating a dialogue of shapes and colors. Watching becomes a game.” A branch of dry, knotted wood mirrored the heat-shaped wooden frame of an armchair. The vertical stripes of a piece of fabric spoke to the surrounding trees. It was also a dialogue between the photographer and the scenographer, who did not know each other before but, as this series shows, developed a shared language.