Rousset uses the agricultural working village of his childhood, on the border of France and Switzerland, to examine the totemic and ritualistic aspects of rural life.

Over twelve years, Thomas Rousset has probed every corner of his family village to create a surrealistic yet tender docu­fiction of its inhabitants. As small­-scale agricultural villages appear stuck in time or close to extinction, Rousset catapults Prabert into a fantastical, hallucina­tory world, creating heightened moments of absurdity amongst intimate portraits and observations of daily village life.

In his creative collaborations with his fellow Prabérians, Rousset engages with deep traditions of rural eccentricity and a dignified non-conformity that unites and binds communities against the harsh realities of everyday agricultural life. Rousset mixes these exaggerated scenarios with striking landscapes and naturalistic portraits, hinting at the creative potential locked within the land and its inhabitants, and the daily dance between work and play, solemnity and joy.

Situé aux frontières qui séparent le documentaire de la fiction, 164° On The Equator aborde un exotisme à la typologie revisitée. Cette série émet l’idée d’un choc des civilisations. Ici, chaque situation est très largement mise en scène, parfois jusqu’à l’absurde.

Faux reportage d’une fausse expédition, ce projet confronte aussi bien la beauté à l’artifice, que les paysages exotiques aux archétypes qui les peuplent. Regard sur des coutumes n’ayant jamais existé, la série trace un parcours sinueux sur une carte inconnue, mais que l’on tente de déchiffrer.

A real-fantasized journey between reality and fiction through a haunted company syncretic beliefs and magic. Photographic work of Thomas Rousset and Raphael Verona made mainly in Bolivia Altiplano region (La Paz, Oruro, Potosi, Irupana South Yungas).

Waska Tatay wants to question our relationship to reality: we were struck by how myths come to life when they are shared in the collective unconscious, which is mainly what we wanted to show.

The mix of images seemingly spontaneous, yet also built with other much mise-en-scene evidence of our desire to create an ambiguous language, the border of reality and fantasy, the image of our perception of Bolivia.