Maude Bardet says, "I welcomed 2022 in Sri Lanka, and when I read about your monthly theme "the human spirit" I instantly though of the images I took there. I had been surrounded by so much energy, kindness and resilience while roaming Colombo, Negombo or Chilaw that I believe the resulting images would fit the theme.

The project I am currently working on is called Kaleidoscopy. It is a street photography project that aims at describing the swirl of impressions that submerges the traveler when reaching a new city for the first time. Flashes of colors, crowds moving chaotically, countless boards in illegible languages - nothing appears recognizable. Like a kaleidoscope, reality is inexhaustible image creating instrument. 

When I first discovered street photography, one of the aspects that attracted me most was the lack of necessity for explanation - no imperative to seek meaning, mystery is even desired. The photographer is free to be spontaneous, follow impressions and intuition, and arrange the surrounding mayhem to produce pleasing images outside of any descriptive framework.

The belief that as an outsider one will be able to comprehend cultural different environments is in most cases hubris, or at best a mere illusion. The images resulting from embracing unintelligibility in turn tell a story about the self: where I found beauty, which people attracted my eyes, which decisive moment grabbed my attention. A sort of mood board emerges out of the confusion that constitutes a better description of myself than any text I could possibly write."

Maude Bardet is a French photographer currently living in the Netherlands. After studying engineering, she first worked in Berlin and then ended up in the Hague, Holland. She always had fernweh - as the Germans say - and invariably construed her jobs as mere tools to finance her travels.

Photography was a constant throughout her numerous trips, evolving from mostly architectural to environmental portraits. She discovered street photography in 2017 during a workshop with Nikos Economopoulos in Ghana, and felt like this was exactly what she had been looking for. Meeting Maciej Dakowicz brought her work to a different level – her images are now more complex and carefully composed.

Guided by light and textures, she tries to portray a slice of the human condition.  She likes to use strong colors to emphasize the compositional elements in her pictures. Her work has emerged mainly through online platforms, particularly Instagram.

Winner of a Remarkable Reward in Trieste 2020, of the Independent Photographer "street photography" competition 2020 and of the Street Photographers Foundation awards 2021.

3rd place in LensCulture Street Photography 2021 and in IPA 2021, category street photography.
Finalist in the Independent Photographer "street photography" competition 2021 and in the Observa street photo festival 2021.
Featured in Chasseur d'images in July 2021.

Featured in Miami Street Photography festival in 2019  and 2020,  Brussels Street Photography in 2019, Rome Street Photography festival in 2021, in OpenWalls, in Arles in 2020, in the Women In Steet 'Two Way Street' exhibition in San Francisco and 'Double Trouble' in Sydney and Brisbane,  in Women Street Photographers exhibitions in New York, Kuala Lumpur, Brussels, Trieste, Chelyabinsk, Hyderabad and Paris, in Venice Photo Lab exhibition 2021.

www.maudebardet.com

www.instagram.com/puuuuuuuuce
 

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