Algues Maudites, A Sea of Tears

Alice Pallot

2022 – Ongoing  — France

About this series

In 2022, Alice Pallot was selected to take part in the Résidence 1+2, a festival of creative residencies designed to promote dialogue between photography and science. She developed the series Algues maudites, a sea of tears, which looks at the toxic algae that proliferate in Brittany (France), in coastal waters. A real environmental and health problem, these algae generate visual, olfactory and toxic pollution. When they are not collected, they form clumps that putrefy and, if handled or trodden on, release a gas called hydrogen sulphide (H2S). This highly concentrated gas becomes harmful and deadly. Alice Pallot has created a sensitive documentary steeped in the notion of anticipation. Her aim is to bring us face to face with the fragility and unpredictability of the natural world as it is put to the test, and with the collapse of biodiversity and its ecosystems. Through this series, she also asks viewers questions about the Earth’s future habitable conditions, showing us resilient organisms living in a state of anoxia (without oxygen).
Alice Pallot aims to create new representations of living things in the face of imperceptible environmental threats. The artist questions a current crisis through a plastic process that pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium, using visual pollution as a photographic filter (algae, plastic bottles). For the past three years, she has been developing the Red bloom series, an experimental practice by immersing her photographic prints in baths of toxic algae for three to four weeks, thus revealing the invisible toxicity through the materiality of the photographic print. (Thanks to Leica, Hangar Gallery, Villa Pérochon).

Photographer: Alice Pallot
Nationality: French
Based in: Paris, France
Website: alicepallot.com
Instagram: @alice.pallot

Alice Pallot is an artist photographer who uses the medium of images to question the impact of human activities on the environment. Her images are imbued with a science-fictional imagery, revealing issues that have remained invisible.
Alice Pallot conducts anticipatory surveys of the territories she investigates alongside scientists and ecologists: the photographer questions the near future by capturing the materiality of reality. By popularising the scientific data she gathers in the course of her investigations, Alice creates her own language through the narrative of photography.