Au cours des années 2003-2004, j'ai travaillé sur une série intitulée Destinations. Elle a été construite à partir de photos de sites touristiques, de réserves naturelles et de diverses villes d'Amérique du nord. J'ai notamment documenté Cape Cod, Les Everglades et Le désert de Mojave. Le tourisme conditionne nos visions du territoire. Cette industrie se développe en créant un vaste réseau de points de vue privilégiés et idéaux. La jonction de multiples sites rend tangible cette zone de médiation. Le temps semble suspendu au-dessus des ces univers tranquilles. Ces vastes étendues sont séduisantes et comportent leur part de sublime, on pourrait presque y voir une magnification de la nature. Pourtant, ces panoramas feignent leur sérénité, créant le doute devant l’enchantement naturel. Le regard attentif y circule et repère des failles qui y affleurent ça et là. Ces images sont faites de paradoxes et d'antithèses: leurs attraits rencontrent toujours une ou plusieurs contre-propositions. À mi-chemin entre la zone et la carte postale, elles font figures de maquettes ou de plans d'aménagement déroutants. Leurs étrangetés et leurs ambiguïtés deviennent une intrigue pour celui qui les regarde, produisant un sentiment partagé, hésitant entre le rejet et la fascination. Ces paysages-spectacles soulignent notre goût pour le grandiose et mettent en relief notre attitude ambivalente envers le monde: le désir de l'assujettir comme celui de s'y immerger.

In the years 2003-2004, I have been working on a series titled Destinations. The series is based on photos of North American tourist attractions, nature preserves and towns. I have documented Cape Cod, the Everglades and the Mohave Desert, among others. Tourism conditions the way we look at the land. It is an industry that grows by creating a vast network of privileged and idealized points of view. By placing multiple sites in conjunction with one another, I make this mediated zone tangible. Time seems suspended in these tranquil universes. The vast stretches of land are seductive and embody a touch of the sublime; one could almost consider them a magnification of nature. Yet the serenity of these panoramas is feigned; they sow doubt about natural enchantment. The attentive gaze moves within the photograph, noticing the occasional inconsistency. These images are composed of paradoxes and antitheses: that which attracts is always juxtaposed with one or more opposite effects. Situated midway between chaotic urban periphery and postcard, they could be models or plans for disconcerting developments. The viewer becomes intrigued by their strangeness and ambiguity and experiences a reaction that is divided between rejection and fascination. These landscapes-for-show draw attention to our interest in the grandiose and our ambivalent attitude towards the world: our desire to control it as well as our desire to become immersed in it.

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In her series of photographs called "Destinations", Isabelle Hayeur asks us to consider how and why we invest meaning into landscapes that are tourist attractions. She poses her questions about the land in large format panoramas that merge different sites into a single seamless landscape, interjecting a trailer park into windswept dunes with the profile of the Pilgrim's Monument in Provincetown on Cape Cod in the distance, for example. Hayeur's "possible worlds" - constructed by digitally knitting different photographs together - ask us to consider how we construct our views of the land and what meaning or preconceptions we ascribe to it. How does a picture become "picturesque"? What do we not see while we are looking at "the view"?

Text from exhibition "Isabelle Hayeur : Destinations", Laura Heon curator, MassMoca (02.10.04 - 01.07.05)