L'exposition Martine Dawson — « Faultlines » à la MEP

Maison Européenne de la Photographie

From July 17 to September 13, MEP Studio presents « Faultlines », a photographic project by Martine Dawson devoted to the houses of Butte, a former mining town in Montana, where domestic space retains the persistent traces of a territory shaped by extraction and the imaginary of the American Western conquest. Located in the heart of Montana, Butte developed in the late 19th century through copper mining. This mining history profoundly transformed the landscape and structured social life. Today, the town seems suspended between memory and present. Its streets, old houses and grounds marked by extraction form an environment that is both inhabited and spectral, where traces of an industrial past persist. Martine Dawson approaches this context through the houses, considered as an entry point into local history. Built quickly during the mining expansion, they have been transformed over time. Fragile foundations, successive additions and repairs bear witness to uses born of necessity. Over the course of her stays, the artist observes how the residents maintain a connection with these places, where traces of the past survive in everyday gestures. Through photographs of exteriors, interiors and domestic details, Faultlines reveals the house as a space where temporalities overlap. By combining contemporary images and archives, the exhibition highlights these dwellings as surfaces of memory, where mining history, imaginaries and present-day ways of living intersect.

Source: Paris Open Data ↗