Thierry Urbain	desert archeologies	photographic work 1994-96
	The photographs presented here are part of a work process which, since 1985, is focused on architecture, archeology and landscape. Situated in the Middle-East or in ancient Mesopotamia, these architectures have always appeared to me as hieratic and timeless locations open to fiction and human science in which geography and history might be presented as utopias. The exotic often looks for the bizarre, the strange, in a word for the sensational and plays upon the chock of geographic distance... I prefer the intimacy of an interior vision: the desert which is at once an alibi and a liberator, a privileged place to know oneself. One must be worthy of the desert the touareg tell us: during the voyage each is supposed to discern that which he has brought with him. Our innermost visions are tenacious and accompany us often in spite of ourselves. Babylon, with its labyrinthine complex of yards, stairs and terraces, appears as a true fortress of Art and Knowledge designed not like a simple library to file the documents, but rather to celebrate all forms of writing. In the same way, the Citadel and the Sanctuary of Qsar El Saràb seem at times to be nothing but a large and calm theater. All these ascetic architectures of remote places do not intend to be anecdotal, exotic or demonstrative. Conversely, their archetypal forms allow us to rebuild time and space according to our own proper desire and to superpose to the photographic reality the equivalence of an interior landscape. The image is not of scientific meaning but simply poetic. Architecture is not the object of a study, but rather it brings to light through space the lines and geometry. Poetry resides in sobriety of the location and the image, in their holy character, in the peaceful and calm atmosphere fulfilled by the presence of lifeless civilizations whose relics will remain mysterious. version française