In an image-driven society, wars have inevitably become wars of images. The issue of war representation, amplified by the crisis of photojournalism, the digital revolution and the proliferation of new distribution channels, lies at the heart of Echoes.

In 2011, at the age of 22, Stephen Dock, a young, self-taught French photographer, set off uncommissioned to cover the war that was beginning in Syria. Over several trips, he built up a body of work on the ground, in the ruins of Aleppo, at Zawiya Mountain, at the eastern tip of Rojava...
He photographed Syrian resistance fighters, devastated streets, overwhelmed hospitals, protest movements and the tragic daily lives of civilians. Continuing on to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Lesbos and Macedonia, his journey tracks the ensuing humanitarian and migratory crisis, beyond the epicenter of the conflict.

More than a decade later, the photographer questions this archive of thousands of images. Departing from any documentary treatment, Stephen Dock involves himself in a process of reinterpretation and reappropriation of his images. He develops new forms, focusing on perception. Stretched, stripped back, cropped, the photographer who yesterday tried to capture the facts as accurately as possible now deliberately impedes his own productions. From noise to silence, he ceases to engage directly with the subject. He no longer obeys the obsession to make images but rather dissects them and operates on them as organic matter.

Echoes, whose title refers to the notion of a reported image, is a refusal to feed a traditional visual mythology of war that is no longer in tune with the reality of today's world. By attempting to deconstruct a photographic register, Stephen Dock proposes a characteristic image of modern war.

Audrey Hoareau