PIERRE-YVES CRUAUD: WHILE THE SHADOWS DREAM UPRIGHT

While the Shadows Dream Upright functions as a poetic injunction: a call for images to elude and for language to contradict. In a gesture reminiscent of Magritte, Pierre-Yves Cruaud utilises the title as a diversion, deliberately displacing the viewer’s attention to unsettle perception and open a field of renewed interpretation.

The exhibition brings together two photographic series that explore the night as a space of memory, strangeness, and revelation. These images seek to capture the precise moments when reality withdraws to make room for fragments of dreams. Each composition is conceived with the soul of a minimalist painting; the “characters” inhabiting these “rooms” appear as hostages to their own history and traces.

Yet, Cruaud’s subjects are far from passive. They struggle, mutate, and reinvent themselves in order to survive. In this body of work, the oneiric dimension is not an escape from the world—it is an act, a vigil, and a vital survival strategy. By creating a constant tension in perception, While the Shadows Dream Upright conjures poetic enigmas that oscillate perpetually between the dream and the waking reality.

Pierre-Yves Cruaud (b.1973, France) since 2000 he has directed experimental films and videos, becoming involved in photography in 2021. In 2025, he was the joint 1st Prize Winner of the BBA Photography Prize.