Photographer Bertrand Meunier is a member of the Tendance Floue collective. His long work on the Chinese industrial world won him many awards, including the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2001 and the Niépce Award in 2007. Coinciding with his exhibition of over forty photos at the Paris 8e Leica Store Gallery, which runs until June 12, he talks to us here about the “Suburbia” series. The series, which began in Asia in 2010, focuses on the destruction of traditional habitats, swept away by the growing standardization of urban centres around the world.
“same neighbourhoods, same buildings, same shopping centres…”
Q: Could you tell us how the “Suburbia” project started, and describe where it stands in the overall continuity of your work?
A: My “Suburbia” project is a reflection on the homogenisation of our living spaces, and on the “a-topical” functional understanding of our habitat. The notion of violence inflicted on individuals, notably in the Asian mega-cities, is a constant in my photos.
Q: What exactly do you mean by “an ‘a-topical’ functional understanding”?
A: I’m citing Jérôme Baschet, whose works have nourished my photographic approach to this subject: “The erasing of places, as specific, singular places, is one of the profound dynamics of our times. The same neighbourhoods, the same buildings, the same shopping centres have sprung up in all four corners of the world. The proliferation of screens has accentuated the indifferentiation of places. What is here can be exactly the same elsewhere.”
While the traditional town drew its charm from its capacity to cohabit with its environment while materializing the unique history of those that lived there, these brand-new neighbourhoods are quite simply established on the absolute negation of their environment, which is reduced to the aridness of a desert.
This work follows on from the work I did on the end of the Chinese State industrial world. I have always been fascinated by people and their condition as individuals in society.
Q: For this series, you notably worked in Valparaiso, Chile, in 2013, and in Shanghai, China, in 2014. What made you decide to work on these cities in particular? What connections, and what differences, struck you from one place to the next with regard to this subject?
A: I was invited to Valparaiso by a festival that takes place there every year for a residency and to run a workshop. Immediately upon arriving in Valparaiso, I wondered whether, like elsewhere, the middle-classes would leave this city centre to take refuge in identically reproducible suburban gated communities.
Valparaiso is classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its exceptional position overlooking the Pacific. The Curauma district, where I worked, is in the heights of the city, behind the hills, with no view other than of its surrounding walls.

This diptych, done in 2013, captures Valparaiso’s new urbanism well. From a habitat looking out onto the Pacific and open to the world, people are heading into the city suburbs and borrowing from banks to live in identical houses, with walls as their landscape.
The poetry of the great Chilean photographer Sergio Larrain is a long way off. Today, the old wooden houses in Valparaiso’s centre are being bought up and turned into one or two-story houses to be rented out to rich tourists.

Here, you have the last “Lilong”, Shanghai’s traditional collective housing. Property speculation has wiped out the traces of historic Shanghai architecture. Paradoxically, the new apartments built in these luxury buildings are struggling to find tenants.
Q: You cited Jérôme Baschet’s works. Which other writers or photographers have nourished your reflection while carrying out this work?
A: I think my influences or thoughts are more situated in the sociological field (Bourdieu, Deleuze) or in contemporary critical thought. I have never considered photography a decorative object, or just aesthetic, but rather a critical medium for our societies. In this respect, Walker Evans or Lewis Baltz have made a mark on me and have given me food for thought.
Q: How did you work on the ground and on editing the exhibition?
A: I often think “print” when I take a shot. I always shoot on film, and the outcome on baryta paper still fascinates me. So seeing the range of greys is an important factor when I frame a shot. The texture of baryta paper is unique. The uniqueness of the print is a part of my work and reflection.
Every exhibition or installation is different, but for “Suburbia” at the Leica Gallery in Paris, I preferred small prints (13x18cm – 20x30cm), in series or diptychs.
Q: How does the Leica accompany you in your work?
A: I’ve always worked using two MP cameras with a 35 mm and a 28 mm lens. Small and light. Precise. It’s a definite advantage — as I only produce small film prints, the quality of the lenses amply suffices.
Q: What forthcoming projects do you have?
A: I’ve just finished a residency in Montbrison, and its surroundings, in France. I’m currently selecting my shots and working on the book design for the publication of a catalogue of this work. In July, I’ll be going to Seoul for a month-long residency, and then to China again to continue working on the “Suburbia” series.
Thank you for your time, Bertrand!
– Leica Internet Team
To see more of Bertrand’s work, visit his website. Read the interview in French here.