«We knew nothing about Flamenco. We were invited to a journey. All we had as luggage were some clichés which tend to lock this art inside motionless images. It was necessary to break with the obvious, to break the frame, to shoot the non-visible, to look for the «duende» in the dark and floodlit glances … as they asked us to do.
We slipped behind the stage. We were led by the call of the cantante.
The rhythm guided our steps to the beat of the heart. Ours, or that of the others? The singing transported us.
There were all the colors of life to fascinate the travelers that we are.
We had perhaps discovered the shortest path between the body and the spirit, between the joy of living and the pain in expressing the world, between the depths of the soul and the universal.»
Mat Jacob and Gilles Coulon

 

 

On the occasion of the 21st edition of the Arte Flamenco Festival in July 2009, the General Council of Landes invited two photographers from the collective Tendance Floue, Gilles Coulon and Mat Jacob, in residence in Mont-de-Marsan.