The sound of silence.

Máze is in the empty heart of the tundra, made of tiny colored houses that challenge the cold air as the blue light that draws the still seasons on the horizon. A piece of Lapland shared between Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, a «country» that is not really one. Yet a land cut by borders, that indifferent reindeers are crossing. Céline Clanet gives us an admired and participating gaze on a world that thirty years ago was threatened to be erased, a small community that opposing the Norwegian project for the construction of a dam (hereinafter, however, built in a place not far) has protected the land and the identity of the Sami, at least momentarily. “Nothing is ever certain in Máze”, explains the photographer from Paris, about the places where she spent a long time. “People live there in a constant territorial and social instability. In this community made of cousins and close relatives, where almost everybody is called Mikkel, Johan, Per Anders or Ellen, time hasn’t got the same rythm than anywhere else. «Tomorow» is an uncertain future that is never told, and «Maybe» is the word that ends each sentence…” A weakness and a persistence that these shots of pure beauty back together as a reflection or an immediate intuition, without need for words.

Photo:

© Courtesy of Céline Clanet

www.celinette.com

(click on the image at right for more pictures)