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Cheap Land in Foto Arica in Chile

I am delighted my project Cheap Land is exhibited at Festival International Foto Arica in Chile for its sixth edition.

Many thanks to Christian Jamett and to all the staff of Foto Arica for the invitation.

Thanks to Elisabeth Paget for the translation in spanish and to Marie-Claire Roussot for the filming.

text in English:

Hi, my name is Richard Petit. I wanted to show the end of the world, and that even at the end of the world we have built artefacts. This is also why the project is called Cheap Land. Since the start of the industrial revolution, we have believed that land costs nothing, that it is cheap.

But to be frank, a completely wild country scares me: what are my chances of surviving in such an environment without tools, weapons, clothes?

To record these landscapes, I chose this camera: the Linhof Technika, a 4x5 inch camera. This optical device allows great precision, it allows to intervene on the depth of field and on the perspective. but beyond its advantages, its extreme slowness makes shooting a ritual, a visual meditation.

These images are conceived from the moment of shooting in large format as a "window on nature" said Vasari the Italian art historian, speaking of the recent invention of perspective in painting.

I am happy that these images are now exhibited in Arica, in your country, Chile. I imagine this country going from the equatorial north to the polar south ... I would love to visit your beautiful country. Unfortunately the current epidemic makes this trip impossible.

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