Winner of the HCB Award 2019, Mathieu Pernot present at HCB Foundation with the exhibition open until 19 June 2022 “La ruine de sa demeure” a fragmented photographic roaming between Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The exhibition features sixty prints by Mathieu Pernot, his grandfather's album, archival family photographs as well as those found in destroyed houses in Mosul.
The grandfather's journey album, made in 1926, is the starting point and draws the path followed from Beirut to Mosul, between the ancient civilization ruins of the Middle East and those of the tragedies of recent history. In a sensitivity close to documentary, Mathieu Pernot unveils a dialectical work which questions the juxtaposition of the narratives of great history and those of his family history.
In September 2019 Mathieu Pernot begins his project in Beirut, where his grandparents and father lived since 1925 before the latter's departure for France in 1958. Thanks to his research, he discovers the family apartment during this first trip. When he returns to the capital after the port explosion on August 4, 2020, the building is therefore inaccessible and threatens to collapse. Mathieu Pernot is thus confronted and intimately linked to the fragile history of Lebanon. From Lebanon to Iraq, Mathieu Pernot continues to witness scenes of desolation, far from family or travel photographs taken by his grandfather almost a century before him. On the one hand, the splendor of archaeological sites such as Baalbek in Lebanon, an "immutable vestige of civilization" (Hala Kodmani) or the Nineveh plain in Iraq. On the other hand, cities destroyed by disasters and wars in recent years, such as Homs, Aleppo or Mosul. From this double permanent contrast between the innocence of the photos in the family album and the violence of the current scenes, then between the ruins of a 3000-year history and those recent armed conflicts, a non-linear reflection is born on this region, the cradle of humanity that today seems to represent its tragic end. Mathieu Pernot's career is part of it a set of stories which intersect with different temporalities which also make us “dive into photography and its intertwined stories” (Etienne Hatt). Despite the many obstacles related to the pandemic and the difficulties of accessing some areas of tension, Mathieu Pernot managed to push back the borders of his grandfather's journey by pursuing his own as far as Aleppo and Mosul. "A journey through the ruins of history" according to the author.
Mathieu Pernot was born in 1970 in Fréjus. He lives and works in Paris. During his studies at the National High School of Photography, Mathieu Pernot met gypsy families in Arles, including the Gorgans, with whom he continues to collaborate afterwards. In the 2000s he has developed several series dedicated to confinement, urban planning and migration. His work produced with Philippe Artières in the archives of the Bon Sauveur psychiatric hospital in Picauville (Manche) received the Nadar Prize in 2013. In 2014 he received the Niépce Prize, the year in which the Game of Paume dedicates an exhibition to him, La Traversée, retracing twenty years of photographs. In 2020, Mathieu Pernot publishes What's Happening. Lesbos 2020 published by Gwinzegal.
