






Radio Ballast
2025
First edition of Radio Ballast by Francois-Xavier Gbre. First impression. Medium format hardback in new condition.
Choose between a signed and an unsigned copy from the dropdown menu
About
For over a year, François-Xavier Gbré traveled along the railway line, photographing train cars, stations, maintenance workshops, and diverse landscapes. His images are imbued with a certain melancholy, reflecting on the passage of time and its effect on matter. As a counterpoint to the photographs of landscapes bathed in light and exuding the humidity of the earth, there is a series of images of fragments: surfaces peeled away by the passage of time or eaten away by rust... Little by little, an outdated atmosphere emerges from these places, a feeling of time standing still. The journey to which the photographer invites us speaks of a history that is certainly over, but whose echoes still resonate in areas long fragmented by colonial presence, whose imprint endures despite the vagaries of nature and man.
This series is accompanied by a text by Clément Chéroux, director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, an essay by Sandrine Colard, photography historian and professor at Rutgers University-Newark (United States), and an unpublished short story by writer Gauz'.