Almost There

Each day, millions of tourists, behind the screen of their smartphones, take millions of photos around the world. Alongside the targeted subjects (a monument, a building, an artwork, any attraction point), these pictures often include glimpses of other tourists or passers-by, sometimes accidentally appearing on the edges of images. The compositions can be rough and the bodies cut, showing only legs, an arm with its smartphone extension, the back of a neck.
In “Almost There”, Corinne Vionnet chose to focus on online pictures taken in Bilbao, souvenirs of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, Jeff Koons’ Puppy, Louise Bourgeois’ Spider. Anonymous parts of people have been captured, fragmented by the framing. These people are almost there, without being identified nor desired: they are entering or leaving the frame. It remains to be seen whether the thousands of photographers themselves were really there too, or if, in a constantly mediated world, we all lost the sense of immediate presence.

Almost There, 2023