Marie Moroni’s photographic project traces connections between an untamed landscape of remote caves, the plants and minerals suffusing its character, and the play of light and shadow that impart a sense of mystery on her work. The former set designer’s exhibition will be launched on June 4 at the enchanting Prieuré Saint Nicolas (Saint Nicholas’ Priory) located in the heart of the Nîmes–Uzès–Pont du Gard triangle.
The project is inspired by Plato’s allegory of the cave. This well known excerpt from The Republic written between 380 and 370 BC explores the idea of prisoners chained to a view on life that is a mere projection, who are incapable of apprehending reality when presented with an authentic version.
For Marie Moroni, the caves of this region offer a sensitive narrative, as a place of refuge, and bearer of memory and heritage. This is a region associated with religious dissent. After the Reformation Protestants sought refuge in remote caverns, followed by Resistance fighters during World War I. There are also tales, apocryphal or otherwise, of modern-day dissenters seeking refuge in its caverns.
According to Marie, who I recently had the pleasure of meeting at the Priory, since prehistoric times, nomads, hermits, shepherds, resistance fighters, outcasts and recluses have all found refuge there. These were free men and women that sought protection in the folds of rock. Thus, more than twenty caves, used over millennia, bear witness to a continuous human presence.
Growing up in the region Marie heard stories of a hermit who lived in one such cave. In response to a newspaper article she recently wrote there were twenty email responses that only deepened the mystery therein.
Her photographic narrative exposes a dialogue between the landscape and the caves. The interior and exterior worlds respond to each other and overlap. Plants and minerals generate a silent theatre, where human traces appear in discreet touches. The light, so cinematic in these places, reveals the contours, the secret passages and the scars.
The openings to the caves, drawn and sculpted by the light, become thresholds, or borders between two worlds.
The mythological figure of the Dragon is an anagram of Gardon. It is a creature of legend, which acts as a hidden revelation, emerging simultaneously in the contours of the river, as the protective guardian of the caves, and as a transformative force.
Seen from above the winding course of the River Gardon undulates like a dragon’s tail, which watches over its domain and the abundant biodiversity surrounding it.
For Marie, the cave is its belly, and the gorge becomes a passage, an organ of voice, and a figure of transformation. Thus, the dragon’s gorge becomes the place where truth is revealed.
The theme of the dragon recalls the mytho-philosophy of John Moriarity, who repudiated the dragon-slayer that impoverishes, arguing that his ‘victory means we have lives on the lobotomized earth.’ Interestingly, Moriarty also refers to ‘[a] Plato’s cave in which I know by the shadows what I therimorphorically have been and am.’
The project will be presented in the heart of the Gorges du Gardon at the Chapel of the Saint-Nicolas Priory, and is supported by a private entity committed to contemporary art and the enhancement of the region.
Marie has been exploring these gorges for a number of years, experiencing their landscapes, light and depths. Accompanied by speleologists, she has explored caves that have been inhabited or marked by human presence.
The photographic and sculptural project unfolds in three parts: LANDSCAPES, CAVES, and CERAMICS.
In the chapel of the Saint-Nicolas Priory, the indoor exhibition will bring together landscapes, grottoes, and ceramics, in the staging of an intimate narrative.
Marie’s approach is both documentary and poetic, stemming from a perspective on the world and the places to which she is intimately connected. These familiar landscapes –the cradle of her ancestors – remain to her, however, mysterious, inviting constant rediscovery, guided by their unique atmosphere. The sky is never visible in her photos.
In the Dragon’s Gorge Marie explores the territory as a living space, capable of transforming perception and awakening the senses. Her practice combines photography, heliogravure – an ancient technique – and ceramics, mediums which allow her own perceptions and translate the emotions as well as the memory that this place holds within.
Her works does not simply represent the Gorges du Gardon. It seeks to reveal its gentleness, strength, tensions and thresholds. According to Marie, the cave is also a symbol of the mother, a space containing the feminine mysteries.
The layout is designed as a sensory journey, inviting the public to feel the landscape as much as to observe it. The exhibition space thus becomes an extension of the landscape, a place of passage where the notions of shadow and light, appearance and disappearance, illusion and truth are reinterpreted.
Special evening visits by candlelight will reinforce this atmosphere of mystery and offer an immersive experience.
Marie is also planning to organize a ‘philosophical dinner’ in the heart of the chapel, based on Plato’s allegory of the cave, with a presentation by a philosopher on the subject. This event will extend the dialogue between the public, the artist, and the landscape.
At the heart of Nîmes-Uzès-Pont du Gard triangle the Priory of Saint-Nicolas-de-Campanac, a former royal toll station, overlooks the Pont Saint-Nicolas and the Gardon River. This historically rich site, now designated a Grand Site de France, is located within a Natura 2000 zone and at the heart of the biosphere reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
All Image © Marie Moroni
