Anne-Sophie Guillet is a French photographer, born in Great-Britain, currently living in Belgium. Her analog-based series of portraits call into question some social injunctions. In so far as it excludes the norms, like exclusivity, gender binary, romanticism, possession as proof of love, generally shown as only option in our traditional society.
About “Together” 2018-ongoing – words by Anne-Sophie Guillet:
Anne-Sophie Guillet suggests with her “Together”series that we change our attitude and perception on various relationships types including love, sexual, friendships and with ourselves. The social injunction imposes itself as an established norm with its heteronormative codes in our lives and in our relationships with others. Today, each individual creates their own model in order to find the best way that resonates with their soul. The people that agreed to pose for the series live their relationships outside the romantic love pattern. All of the individuals can be lovers, in polyamory relationships, trans or non binary peers, non labeled relationships, the spectrum is large and does not stop to that, it is only to name a few examples.
Sentimental exclusivity and romantic love are valued components in our society. How would it be possible to redefine the contours of love relationship ? How could we question the sentimental norm or stop to project our believes on others ? Relationships shouldn’t be put in competition nor prioritised, they should co-exist.
The resulting image can be staged or caught on the moment. The portraits translate a form of complicity between the models and it interrogates its reading out of the romantic love norm. These people live out of the traditional norms like possessiveness as a sign of love, exclusivity in love relationship, gender binary, romantic love which are perceived as the only valued and possibility in our traditional society. Each individual in the series create their own reference system which includes transparency, autonomy, compersion, empowerment, or to simply let them live as as they wish.
