All by my selfie
The work of Marc Pataut exceeds standard photographic practice in its dedication to social engagement. To this end he created the association ‘Ne Pas Plier’ (Don’t give in) in 1991 with Gérard Paris-Clavel which, in addition to the meetings and research it offers, publishes a newsletter that allows its ongoing work to be disseminated more widely. The series produced for the Emmaüs Foundation, which includes Portrait of Yannick Venot, Emmaüs participant (1995), responds to the desire to establish a form of social link through the photographic project. The notion of community is not proposed as a fixed unit, but rather as a set of constantly evolving relationships. These two sets (three vertical and two horizontal formats) demonstrate a gentle furthering of intimacy with the photographed subject, for it is in the individual that Marc Pataut sees the signs of a potential community.
Christian Joschke, 1999 Extract from the Collection 1989-1999 : FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Actes Sud, Arles / Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille, 2000
The series created for the Emmaüs charitable Foundation of which this polyptych is a part, answers the question of how to photograph a community that exists solely through its relationship with others. The idea of community is not constructed here as a fixed unit, but as a set of constantly evolving relationships which photographic research can participate in: "I am going to mark each person's position on the ground with chalk so that the next person can place him or herself in this virtual group, a group that will exist only in memory, in the work that each person will have to do in order to constitute it."
Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 2006