The title of the body of work, Midnight Zone, points to both a moment and a place: a potential deep-sea mining site rich in mineral resources that lies off the coast of the Clarion Clipperton Zone between Hawaii and Mexico, across an expanse of nine million kilometers.

A lighthouse lantern gradually descends into the ocean’s depths, surrounded by a school of fish that becomes increasingly sparse as it moves toward the abyss. This light traces the path of a beam of sunlight, piercing the water’s surface and remaining visible to a depth of about one thousand meters. This is the threshold of the midnight zone. Beyond this point, darkness.

Yet the absence of visibility does not mean emptiness: plankton and other microscopic life forms thrive at these depths. With the light acting like a silent beacon, flashing intermittently to illuminate its surroundings, Charrière evokes the threshold between the visible and the invisible. For what is most significant in this work is not what appears on screen, but what remains unseen beyond the limits of the light. Indeed, thousands of meters below lie polymetallic nodules, rock-like formations rich in materials that are highly coveted for strategic reasons, notably for smart-car batteries. However, the ecological impact of using heavy equipment to extract these nodules from the seafloor remains largely unknown, and any contamination is at risk of disseminating itself far more quickly in the water than it would on land. In Midnight Zone (2024), Charrière’s video work, though a moving image, echoes the etymology of photography: writing with light.

The artist also plays with the conventions of photography, as seen in works like Veils (2025), where pieces of dead coral are ground into pigments and used to depict the documented subject, live coral. This approach invites reflection on the circularity between what an image represents and the materials used to produce it, blurring the lines between presentation and representation.

In the works presented in this exhibition, Charrière continues his poetic and sensitive exploration of the incommensurable impacts of climate change. The perspective he adopts here is, quite literally, abyssal. The concept of the Anthropocene1 typically focuses on the terrestrial impact of human activity on terrestrial geological strata, the imaginaries it conjures are predominantly continental rather than oceanic, earthly rather than aquatic. By delving into these underwater spaces, Charrière extends his aesthetic inquiry, guiding his camera through diverse environments and ecotones. In doing so, he populates the mental landscapes and ecologies of those who engage with his work.

1 This concept is often criticized within social sciences for failing to identify those responsible for the climate crisis. Moreover, it continues to pose challenges in scientific circles, where researchers struggle to agree on an appropriate marker that can reflect the global impact of human activity. This led to the rejection of the term by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy in 2024 to name a new geological era. This, of course, was not a rejection of the idea that human activity has indeed affected the climate.

Text by Martin Guinard