shashasha

“Permanent Vacation” is the first photobook by Tokyo-based French photographer and creative director Pascal Viout.
Viout’s photographs appear as ultra-close zooms on minute details of everyday life: an apple and two oranges half-wrapped in foil, a mailbox, a security camera poking through a hedge, a tree growing through the metal beam of a railing, and so on. Isolated from their surroundings, Viout’s subjects become protagonists of captivating, sometimes humorous and surreal situations. While some of his photographs seem like dense visual jokes, Viout’s series is a search for a transient beauty that emerges from the endless flow of urban environments.

“Time is a predominant concept in Japanese aesthetics; Cities are in a perpetual state of metamorphosis, and these transformations of urban landscapes often unveil unexpected scenarios, reminiscent of an art display.
In a state of constant flux, these scenarios blend materials, emptiness, and life into a harmonious composition that can be experienced as installations where the ordinary becomes extraordinary: a ‘Permanent Vacation.’”
— Pascal Viout’s statement