Sylvie Decaux

Will You Bark With Me

2018

I set out on the day we first talked about matchboxes at the Salon, and found myself picking leaves by the Seine. It was glorious autumn and the leaves were yellow and red. I put these leaves on my dining room table and started taking photographs as they gradually formed a nature morte. I am haunted by the sixth extinction of species. It was also a time of social unrest, and I took part in several marches. Pictures of those entered the matchbox. I didn’t think in so many words, it just happened haphazardly. I see the box and its contents as a message that will cross oceans to meet other women elsewhere with whom we have more in common than we think, maybe less than we hope. A desire for conversation. A desire for dialogue.