emile barret + laurent ponce: le marché

emile barret + laurent ponce: le marchéone of the images in the ‘le marché’ series by emile barret and laurent ponce all images courtesy emile barret and laurent ponce

in ‘le marché’ (‘marketplace’), a series by french artist emile barret and photographer laurent ponce, human beings take the place of meat in butcheries and their market display cases, sinks, and tables.

the harsh coloured lights and frozen settings leave the work open to many interpretations, and we are interested in hearing what our designboom readers have to say about the project.

is it a critique of superficial, objectivist culture, or of the ways in which our society’s open sexuality eliminates the erotic? does it bring forward the questionable ethics and policies behind the meat production industry, frequently overlooked and ignored in our day-to-day existence? many images strike visual parallels with scenes from a hospital or mortuary: is there an element of cold, analytic precision that these places share with the empty marketplace? and what of the isolation of the human body in these scenes devoid of other sellables, food, or people?