The residential buildings of Paris appear to be sailing through the sky like kites in these dream-like images created by French photographer Laurent Chéhère (+ slideshow).
“All these flying houses are the fruits of my travels in the popular districts of Paris; Ménilmontant and Belleville,” Laurent Chéhère told Dezeen, explaining how he manipulated photographs of real buildings to create impossible images inspired by “the poetic vision of the old Paris.”
Some of the buildings pictured look just like typical houses, while others boast unusual features like a giant window or wonky walls.
“Sometimes I use the realistic, metaphoric, symbolic and subjective, if it is necessary to tell a story,” said the artist.
One image shows a circus tent, with juggling sticks and balls falling out of its open base (above), while another shows a caravan gliding through the sky (below).
A house on fire is pictured in one shot (below), while traces of life can be spotted in some of the other residences, such as smoke billowing from chimneys and legs hanging out of a window.
“I tried to get these sad houses out of the anonymity of the street, to help them to tell their story, true or fantasised,” said Chéhère.
The images are on show at the Galerie Paris-Beijing in Paris until 8 December.
See more manipulated photography on Dezeen, including images of buildings pulled apart.
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Here’s some more information about the exhibition from Galerie Paris-Beijing:
LAURENT CHÉHÈRE
Flying Houses
Galerie Paris-Beijing is pleased to present the work of the French photographer Laurent Chéhère.
Employing traditional photography and digital manipulation, his surreal series, Flying Houses, elevates architecture to a new level. The artist takes a variety of residential structures out of their defining neighbourhood backdrops. Released from their choked streets, the houses float amidst the clouds, like kites.
Inspired by the poetic vision of the old Paris and by the famous short-length film The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse, Laurent Chéhère has strolled around the Belleville and Ménilmontant neighbourhoods, glancing at their typical and “tired” houses.
Captured mid-journey, moving above the clouds as they remain tethered out of frame, like balloons to their thin strings, these old edifices glide high above the surface, revealing their hidden beauty.
Some of flying houses are adorned with clotheslines and flowers pots, while others carry signs and businesses away from the fire flames… All of them seem to find a second life, uprooted from their native city and heading for other skies.
Laurent Chéhère’s Flying Houses are a real invitation to travel and a metaphor of the fleetingness of the world that allow us to plunge into a dreamlike and moving world full of cheerfulness and humour.
Laurent Chéhère (Paris, 1972) is an award-winning creative advertiser and tireless traveller. From Shanghai to Valparaiso, from La Paz to Lhasa, from Bamako to Bogota, he feeds his imagination and gives us his view of the world.
He loves exploring the cities, suburbs, countries, as he likes to explore all fields of photography from reportage to conceptual image. Laurent Chéhère exposed the series Flying Houses at Dock en Seine City of Fashion and Design in June 2012 where he won the Prix Special. The series is being shown in China at the 2012 Pingyao International Photography Festival.
From Thursday 25th October to Saturday 8th December 2012.
Galerie Paris-Beijing
54, rue du Vertbois
75003 Paris
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