Les yeux fermés, Eliot Nasrallah

Les yeux fermés explores how the human body can engage in a therapeutic healing process, as well as the role of performative photography in this journey. The few anonymous protagonists of the book are followed on a quest through a changing Mediterranean landscape, interacting with their surroundings. By engaging in rituals and performative actions, the body taps into external energies to fortify its inner strength. The journey culminates in Greece's Stefanos volcano, symbolising a new boundary to cross. The active volcano represents both danger and a lost paternal figure.

Eliot Nasrallah, a French-Lebanese artist based in Paris, initiated the project after experiencing the loss of a place of personal significance, as a result of the loss of a loved one. The deliberately underexposed photographs create a visual language connected to broad themes of memory, absence and loss. 

“Dear Stefanos,
I understood that we could have met before today.
25 years ago, a few kilometres from here. 
At the time, I was on the other side of the sea, waiting on his shoulders. 

Now I'm alone, but at the entrance of your throat.
It was your burning breath that guided me,
despite 
the deep sleep in which you seem to have drifted.”

an excerpt from a poem by Eliot Nasrallah featured in the book.

Published by Kult Books
Softcover
320 pages
170 x 218 mm
ISBN 9789198760767