Saint Exupéry means to me a peculiar mixture of romanticism, spiritual rapture, revolt and protest against globalization and violence. When working on the project I visited places associated with his childhood – Saint Maurice de Rémens, Ambérieu, I flew in a small aircraft along his postal route between Agadir and Dakar, I re-read his works as well as various biographies. I found a person who had been sundered, poetic, tumultuous, preaching, erring, fighting, and rebellious. And yet so consistent in his expression, that one of the critics said of his work that “throughout his life he had been writing, in different forms, just one book.
All of my literary projects originate through a similar process – I try to find as much information as I can about the authors and visit the places where they lived and worked. I take in the place and their work and then create images somewhere between a dream landscape and abstraction, I basically photograph the author’s work as it is reflected in my mind.
The individual shots were taken in: Agadir, Ambérieu, Arrecife, Caserio de Tenesar, Ermita de Las Nieves, Galdar, Helfštýn, Jizerka, Lyon, Maspalomas, Melrose Abbey, Murano, Panenský Týnec, Ponta Delgada, Saint Maurice de Rémens, Skaftafellsjökull, Snaefellsjökull, Tademmante, Timanfaya, and Valašské Klobouky. The final processing, in contrast with the two previous projects, was fully based on combining photographs from different places, this time, also with a balanced share of traditional and ICM takes. In Exupéry, many well-known and new locations were combined into one big anthill from which I then drew the visualization for my final mindscapes. This was also the first time when I made sketches of the individual takes in preparation of the project, even though in most cases the final image departed from the sketch. Most of the takes for the project originated between November 2017 and June 2019, however, I also used older takes, for instance from Iceland.
The collection was awarded 3rd place at the MIFA – Moscow International Photo Awards 2019 and an honourable mention at the Fine Art Photography Awards 2019 in London.
The project was first exhibited between November 11th, 2019 and Dec 15th, 2019 in the Gallery of Art Critics (Galerie kritiků) in Prague.