« I delighted in this white ocean, so deserted in appearance but in reality so inhabited”notes Christophe Jacrot from his experience on the island. Iceland, also known as the Land of Fire and Ice, is confronted with seasonal contrasts: covered in expanses of green in summer and covered in snow (snjór, in Icelandic) in winter, made of glaciers and of active volcanoes, overlooked by midnight suns and midday moons, rich in biodiversity and large infrastructures…
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The sound of silence
Travel the country through this book, it's starting an immersive experience in the Great North. Throughout the pages, we shiver under a parade of landscapes, each more dizzying than the last. We hallucinate in front of disconcerting and silent, almost abstract panoramas.
Rocks: blocks of blue, ultra-graphic frozen water compose a lunar landscape in a glacial lagoon. CHRISTOPHE JACROT./COURTESY OF ÉDITIONS DU CHÊNE
Clichés with aspects of impressionist paintings or charcoal sketches, we remain hypnotized in front of the thirty-seven chiaroscuro photographs which shape the work, accentuated by the omnipresence of the humidity of this land of ice.
Like a snow leopard, photographer Christophe Jacrot infiltrates the field and, with his strikingly realistic images, awakens the senses. At the center of these ghostly and legendary spaces, as if lonely, stand timidly small houses with red shutters, tiny white chapels, Icelandic ponies, muffled silhouettes of the inhabitants of a village, telephone booths…
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The White Route winds between the mountains, its route marked by stakes to indicate it in heavy snow. CHRISTOPHE JACROT./COURTESY OF ÉDITIONS DU CHÊNE
It's your head in the stars Let us imagine this region of the Arctic Circle with lunar landscapes, still covered in an immaculate coat in winter. We even seem to hear the sound of Christophe Jacrot's footsteps in the snow…
> Snjór, by Christophe Jacrot, Éditions du Chêne, 70 p., €60.
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