164° On The Equator, a collaborative effort by Parisian photographers Charles Negre and Thomas Rousset, explores questions of authorial intervention and implied narrative.
Negre and Rousset construct fictional, surrealistic realities all their own. Shot in Indonesia over the course of two months in 2014, this unique body of work sees the pair offsetting intuitive, documentary-style shooting with the intentionality of studio-based staging, with everyday elements combined and repurposed to highly theatrical ends.
Banana leaves as backpacks, miniature boats as shoes, snakes as headbands and office décor, hunters wading through rivers gone suddenly neon: as in their respective practices, 164° On The Equator finds Negre and Rousset interested less in depiction than invention, the work’s striking juxtapositions and ambiguous themes blurring the boundaries between image-taking and image-making.
