Pre-order Announcement for Claire Cocano’s Rue Désiré Chevalier

10/20/2024

©︎Claire Cocano / Rue Désiré Chevalier

We are pleased to announce that the pre-order for Claire Cocano’s artist book Rue Désiré Chevalier has now officially started. After participating in the 2022 PHOTOBOOK AS OBJECT workshop, Claire spent over two years developing the book in collaboration with RPS curator Yumi Goto, and it is now finally completed.

This book is based on the story of her grandparents, who emigrated from Yugoslavia to France in the 1960s, and it weaves together past and present, home and exile. For many years, they held on to the hope of returning to their homeland, but that dream never came true. Their apartment on Rue Désiré Chevalier was left frozen in time after their passing. Due to the language barrier, communication with her grandparents was fragmented, but through family albums, archives, and her own photography, Claire was able to reconnect with their journey and understand her ties to a country that no longer exists.

This is a story in which past and present, homeland and adopted country, France and former Yugoslavia, are intricately woven together. Like the embroidery her grandmother used to sew, memories are woven between the homeland that holds the heart and the new life built in a foreign land.

The book is hand-bound by the artist, with a limited edition of only 65 copies, each numbered and signed. This special artist book is deeply connected to the themes of the work. It has been shortlisted for the 2024 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards in the “First PhotoBook” category and will be available at Paris Photo and Polycopies in November.

We also offer a special bonus, which includes a unique work where Claire has embroidered the book’s title onto a replica of an embroidery pattern left by her grandmother. This special bonus is available as an option for purchase.

A new country, a new start and the trips back and forth of an entire lifetime. This sentence could sum up the journey my grandparents undertook in the sixties. In 1965, a bilateral agreement between France and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia marked the opening of borders and the arrival of Yugoslavs in France, an exceptional event for a socialist country. Despite the historical links between the two countries, the contrast was huge. My mother, Dusanka, started primary school at age 7, and was renamed Daniele. My aunt Radmila had her name changed to Régine. If in theory, Yugoslav and French workers were equal, the reality was quite different. Désiré Chevalier is the street where they lived most of their lives. Every summer for the next forty-four years, they drove back to their hometown of Novi Sad.

As temporary-workers, my grandparents lived for many years under the illusion of returning home. Their long-delayed return had become impossible. When the war began in 1991, my grandfather started to scratch any link he could find, leaving scars in books and magazines. As a 9 year-old, I couldn’t understand these issues. Today, I see his anger stemming from being a powerless witness of the violent disintegration of his country which, at the same time, restricted the mobility of an entire population whose lives had oscillated between France and Yugoslavia. Their country shrank, its borders multiplied and their « home » changed name and nationality. For my grandparents, who remained apart from French society, their flat was like their own little country.

After their death, the flat on Rue Désiré Chevalier was left frozen in time. Before they passed, the language barrier between us made communication very fragmentary, so it is through family albums, archival documents and my own pictures that I’ve been able to reconnect to them, and understand my own connection to a country that no longer exists. From their apartment, behind closed doors, I reinterpreted their memories and archives. Exploring their photo albums, spanning a period of fifty years, I discovered how they would photograph each other, always one after the other, from the same point of view.

This is a story in which past and present, native home and adoptive home, France and former Yugoslavia, are closely interwoven. Memories are weaved together like the embroidery my grandmother used to sew, a metaphor between the memory of home country, where the heart remains, and the life one builds in a new country, leading to an unachieved mental landscape made of absence and presence.
– Claire Cocano

Artist Book Details

Limited edition of 65 copies (each copy numbered and signed)
Photography, text, editing, embroidery, and binding: Claire Cocano
Photo archives and notebook: Ljubomir and Stanka Sadzakov
Size: 190mm x 260mm
Pages: 192 pages + 6 folded pages (3 types of paper)
Weight: Approximately 700g
Languages: French and English
The project was first developed during the 2022 Photobook as Object workshop under the guidance of Yumi Goto and Jan Rosseel, and was later further refined in collaboration with Yumi Goto.

Reservation Details for Artist Book and Artist Book + Special Bonus
We are offering two options this time: the Artist Book and the Artist Book with a Special Bonus. The Special Bonus includes a unique piece where Claire has embroidered the book’s title on a replica of her grandmother’s embroidery pattern. Please complete your reservation using the PayPal checkout below.

Please note that the checkout buttons are different for the Artist Book and the Artist Book with Special Bonus. Also, make sure to carefully select your shipping destination.

For those picking up at Polycopies, please choose your preferred date, and if you have any special instructions, include them in the message box.

For more details, please check the photos below.

Sales Information
This book will be available at the PHOTOBOOK AS OBJECT / PHOTOBOOK WHO CARES booth at Polycopies, held in Paris in November. You can also place an online reservation and pick up the book in person at the event.

1. Artist Book

Your shipping destination

Polycopies pick-up: Choose your date:

Special instructions? Add to message box:

From the spread pages of Rue Désiré Chevalier by Claire Cocano

©︎Claire Cocano / Rue Désiré Chevalier

2. Artist Book + Special Bonus (with a unique embroidered title on a replica of her grandmother’s embroidery pattern)

Your shipping destination

Polycopies pick-up: Choose your date:

Special instructions? Add to message box:

©︎Claire Cocano / Rue Désiré Chevalier
Artist Book + Special Bonus (with a unique embroidered title on a replica of her grandmother’s embroidery pattern)

©︎Claire Cocano / Rue Désiré Chevalier
Artist Book + Special Bonus (with a unique embroidered title on a replica of her grandmother’s embroidery pattern)）

News, PHOTOBOOK STORE, RPS SHOP