JULIEN SEGARD

The Étang-de-Berre, a brackish water lagoon on the Mediterranean coast, holds a paradoxical history. Once recognized for its rich biodiversity and remarkable fauna, the area became host to one of the largest petrochemical complexes in southern France during the 1960s. Spanning nearly 1,000 hectares, the Berre cluster includes petrochemical plants, harbours, pipelines, and distribution terminals. This juxtaposition of industrial scars and natural resilience has had a deep imprint on Segard’s psyche. Ironically, the factories’ presence allowed some pine forests to remain untouched. In recent decades, as some industrial plants were dismantled, their ruins and non-assigned spaces became fertile ground for marginal and illicit activities.

These gaps, these blind spots in the landscape, represent freedom to Segard: side roads, deviations, and spaces where authority’s gaze falters. He sees them as places for non-linear thought to wander, margins forgotten by the establishment—forests as ruins, holes in the urban fabric offering refuge. Segard finds himself drawn to spaces of rupture and contradiction, where layers of memory, geography, and culture converge. Like a one-way journey into the interior. Dancing at the Edge of the World.

Julien Segard, b. 1980, Marseilles, France, lives and works between Goa & Marseilles.