Les incommodes, 2026
 
“In ‘Les incommodes’, Laurence Aëgerter has selected from the Autochrome collection of the Archives de la planète a series of portraits that appear innocent at first glance but are particularly jarring when viewed through a contemporary lens: a naked Black woman from Djibouti, a naked albino in Vietnam, a refuse collector, a man from Benares (India) – perhaps an Untouchable – and children working together on a loom in Damascus.
These portraits are anything but mundane; they exude the Western condescension of the early 20th century, which reproduces in images the archetypes it has itself forged and disseminates them through photography. 
This series is genuinely unsettling, yet the artist redeems the subjects just as much as she mitigates the violence of the gaze directed at them through the technical process employed. 
The softness of the lithophane serves to erase the ‘documentary’ brutality of the original photographs.”

Sylvain Besson, Directeur des collections, musée Nicéphore Niépce

Texte original

“Dans ‘Les incommodes’, Laurence Aëgerter a choisi au sein des autochromes des Archives de la planète des portraits innocents en apparence mais particulièrement violents à l’aune de nos regards contemporains : une femme noire, nue, de Djibouti, un albinos au Vietnam, nu également, un ramasseur d’ordures, un homme de Benares (Inde), peut-être un Intouchable, des enfants travaillant ensemble sur un métier à tisser à Damas.
Ces portraits sont tout sauf banals, ils transpirent la condescendance occidentale du début du XXe siècle qui reproduit en images les archétypes qu’elle a elle-même forgés et les diffuse par la photographie.
Cette série est véritablement incommode mais l’artiste répare les modèles autant qu’elle atténue la violence du regard porté sur eux par le procédé technique employé.
La douceur de la lithophanie s’emploie à faire disparaitre la brutalité « documentaire » des clichés originaux.”

Laurence Aëgerter
While researching for ‘Poor Maria’, I discovered a series of portraits which stroke me their beauty at first glance but which, in the next seconds, made me feel unconfortable.
All these images are containing elements that seem to correspond to situations of social exclusion, children labour, sexual oppression, precarity of income and health.
The photographs have been taken all around the world, respectively in Asia, middle East, Africa, Europe and India.
The portraits I selected are spanning almost a life time, from early youth to the older age.
The combination of this different elements combined give an universality to this ensemble, which I called ‘Les Incommodes’.
In a later stage I wish to realise a common frame for the five lithophanes, as a polyptic.