"extra muros" is the archive of a performative photographic observation
of the Parisian city motorway boulevard périphérique and its surroundings.
The title refers not only to its urbanistic meaning of "outside the city walls",
but points also to a peculiar paradox of the pair of opposites "intra -" and
"extra muros": both can be used, depending on the point of view, both as
a synonym for "secret, confidential or non-public", as well as for its
opposite.
Planned at the time to replace the obsolete city wall in order to simplify access
to the capital for individual motorised traffic, to move from a border function
to one of transition, the "boulevard" now once again more obviously symbolises
an obstacle, for example for pedestrians and cyclists. Not least for
this reason, the performative act of walking is of particular importance
for this work.
The first photographs, as well as my interest in the non-place that still
surrounds the the built boundary between the city centre and the suburbs,
occured back in 2008. It wasn't until 2019 that I had the opportunity, in
preparation for the exhibition „Ici et là-bas" at the Goethe Institute in Paris, to
resume my work and to walk around the city centre several times in an anti-clockwise direction.
As Paris is currently undergoing a major redevelopment process (grand paris),
which is also intended to blur the boundary between the city centre
and the suburbs to some extent, I plan to repeat the project at regular intervals.
