Clémentine
Schneidermann
2016 - 2025
In collaboration with Charlotte James
text
overview
Projects
Ffasiwn
I Called her Lisa Marie
Johnny B Goode
Heads of the Valleys
Camelot Court
Concerts
The Hunt
Blushes
Elea
Sète
“Ha! You lot look like you’re off to a funeral!”
“It’s called fashion! Look it up.”
Documentary, performance, social commentary, landscape photography and, of course, fashion. This series explores all of these forms but belongs to none. In these photographs, we see young people move in harmony with the seasons, adapting, embracing and thriving in them. The scenes they are pictured against, in contrast, are stagnant, tired and worn. The passage of time is central. Seasonal changes and celebrations are reflected in the colours of costumes but also in the landscapes: Autumn and Winter in the first part, and then comes Spring and Summer.
One of the most iconic images of the series, the summer street party, encapsulates the spirit of this series - the carnivalesque summer street party contrasted with a deserted Merthyr Vale street. Clémentine and Charlotte met in Valleys town, Abertillery in 2015. Realising their common interest, they began hosting fashion-themed workshops for young people in two youth groups. They’ve collaborated and worked with the same young people for the past eight years. Drawing on their own industry experience, they have taught the young people skills such as sewing, customising clothes and styling. They helped put together the outfits in the photographs, which were taken by Clémentine.
But the workshops were about more than that. They were about introducing the next generation to the creative industries, developing their self-confidence and challenging stereotypes. Deprivation in the south Wales Valleys has been documented for decades. The media has reliably presented the nation with caricatures of unemployment, declining town centres and, more recently, sound bites for unsympathetic reports on Brexit-voting regions. The coverage has rarely sought to explore the complexities of de-industrialisation and what this means for people, families and communities.
Clémentine and Charlotte’s business here is not to deny the reality of social deprivation. Instead, they juxtapose this with the vivacity, promise and hope of youth. They elevate the young subjects with a colourful palette and by playing with fiction and humour - the resulting contract positing a challenge to preconceived ideas about the Valleys.
The images were taken between 2015 and 2023 in Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil.
Text by Kirsty Purnell on the occasion of the exhibition at the Martin Parr Foundation 2019