LIKE DREAMERS DO
Coralie
I love listening to stories. All my life I’ve been asking to my grandparents, parents and anyone around me to tell me their stories. Their childhood, their love stories, their travels, their feelings about their life, anything that could make me picture who they really are inside. Stories are incredible, they allow you to travel, dream and feel.
My family has always been an important part of me. I was lucky to have my mum taking photos and my dad taking videos of me and my brother since we were born. Their own parents did the same so we always had a huge collection albums. My favourite thing when I was younger was to spend days looking at the photos, asking who was on the photos and listening to my mum telling me stories about them.
When I started studying photography, I discovered that my grandma had an amazing collection of photos from when she was engaged in the army during the Vietnam war. Someone (that she didn’t remember the name) photographed her and one of my uncle with a 6×6 analog camera and the quality of them were incredible. I then decided to do a project with her trying to photograph her in the same posture she was when she was 24 years old (my age at the moment) and to record her talking about how she felt at this age.
On the other side, my grandparents had a house on a field in the middle of nowhere with no electricity, no running water, and the toilet outside. It was amazing – I could go there by bike from my parent’s house, spend my day surrounded by nature, chasing frogs in the pond, and cooking imaginary food with mud. This is probably when I developed a big imagination and I’m so grateful for the simple life I had surrounded by my favourite people.
Some stuff
I was born in Nantes, France in April 1990 and grew up in the french countryside with my parents, my brother and a lot of cats
This is the field where my grandparents used to live during summertime and where I spent most of my childhood playing with everything I could find in the nature - mostly mud, branches, water, flower and rocks. My grandma who was the kindest person also taught me how to knit but I'm pretty bad at it.
My grandma at 24 years old. Here she was in Vietnam during the war where she worked as a typist. She was a strong woman, always fighting for freedom and dreaming about travelling around the world. The thing she was talking the most about was how much she loved her three sons. I did her project with her to document her journey through Alzheimer. It helped me a lot to create something with her during this time instead of being sad seeing her changing. I'm thinking about doing an exhibition about it one day...
With my lovely boyfriend Tom in Scotland. We spent a day in Glencoe which is such a beautiful place and got the chance to have Dylan from The Kitcheners taking pictures of us. We spend most of our time together, cooking, skateboarding or playing music. He is the kindest person - always caring for people and making jokes. He is a musician and his band is called "Francis Lung" if you're curious... :) We are two very emotional people, and crying in front of Netflix happens pretty often ahah.
My parents took me out to spend some holidays with them in Croatia a few years ago. It was so cool to spend some time with them in this beautiful country eating amazing food. My mum had a creperie until I was 1 year old and she really transmitted me her love for cooking and having people hanging around.
Hey, it's me in the trolley! We lived pretty close to the Atlantic coast and my parent are still going there pretty much every weekend. I really miss living close to my family even if I also really enjoy living in Manchester. I love that my parents taught us to be close to nature and I'm really aware of its beauty but also it's fragility today.
My brother and his own little family. I'm so proud of the person he is. Always trying to have fun, loving his girls more than anything, a nice friend and the best brother.
With my parents on their boat. I still have a fresh memory of my dad's blue jacket, probably his all time favourite and I love that we kind of all have the same haircut - easy to take care of. My parents are real "outdoor lovers" but I think I am more of a homebody. I can't stay working in the house for days forgetting to go outside but then when I go out I really enjoy it!
Do you want to tell me more about you?
Let's chat!
