Sand of noises

Sand of noises is a duo project by Marie Hervé and Elsa Martinez. They explore the myths and cultural constructions of the Mediterranean area, blurring the lines between fiction and archeology.

/ Duo project by Marie Hervé and Elsa Martinez.

Sand of noises was born from our encounter at the National School of Photography in Arles. The first chapter focused on the city of Palermo in February 2020, then gave rise to a second journey in September 2021, drawing a trajectory over a wider part of the Sicilian territory.

From the city of Palermo and the territories of Sicily, steeped in legends and hybrid cultural heritages, our work explores the notions of ruins, reconstruction and collective memory.

The project draws an itinerary made of accidents and wanderings, circulating between History, anecdotes and narration; taking the space of the island, surrounded by the mythical waters of the Mediterranean, as a phantasmagorical figure. By taking up the visual language of archaeology and historical archives, Sand of noises proposes memory as a successive, elusive invention and reconstruction.

A place of all projections, ruins and objects found along the way bear witness to a kind of sorrow; that of the impossibility of grasping what is lost, and of having only fragments, remains and silent witnesses.

As a fabricator of mirages, photography leaves its status of proof to become an ambiguous tool, blurring the lines between science and fiction, truth and falsity, past and future, still to be constructed.

Since these first "chapters", we continue our journey to explore our Mediterranean roots more deeply, from the south of France to Greece and Italy.

This project was awarded the Eurazéo Grant in 2021.