The Essentials S-S 2025

The area is rocky, with hills rising up like walls on which erosion has drawn grooves that count down the years. The structures that still exist depict man's neglect of these vast tracts of land. Slowly, nature returns, first crawling between the gravel, then resilient plants stretch their stems into the air to catch a few rays. Grasses follow the contours of the rocks and docks. What was a bare, industrialized plane is transformed into steppes, through which nature tries to restore its shades.

The cyclist passes by unnoticed, his mind wandering between his pedal stroke and his thoughts. Looking ahead, the colossus of rocks and the cold tones of their minerals seem to close in on him. Yet, as he looks up again, flowering branches and long grasses dancing in the gusts of wind invite him to venture further into this paradoxical desert. The road climbs up to touch the azure sky, then drops back down into discreet hollows sheltering it from the wind, then turns and climbs again. It maintains this rhythm to such an extent that it feels like pedaling on the rough surface of the sea. In the hollows of these furrows, the dirt track skirts ponds, sometimes turquoise, sometimes silver, as if they were replicating the weave of the sky.