Origins & Reconstructions - Duel - Dilemma of the Animal Human

Built around the myth of Chiron, Duel sits on the fragile line between instinct and consciousness, animal and culture, mortality and the wish to rise above it.
The series began in the forests of Greece, where old stories still seem lodged in the landscape itself. I am not trying to illustrate mythology here, I use the centaur as a way of looking at something that remains thoroughly contemporary: the tension between our biological nature and our urge to outgrow it.
Chiron's wound becomes a stand-in for an inner conflict that never quite resolves. Neither fully animal nor fully human, neither condemned nor free, he embodies a permanent negotiation between opposing forces.
Through broken-up bodies, ambiguous presences and landscapes that feel inhabited, Duel treats mythology not as a story from the past but as a structure we are still living inside, one that lets us look at the contradictions built into being human.
It belongs to Origins & Reconstructions, and keeps pulling at the same thread: how myths, territories and shared imagination shape the way we understand ourselves.

Developed within the Unclearpicture collaboration with writer Michel Maurel

A folded, animal-like form lies among leaves and branches on a dark forest floor.
Negative-toned view of a folded animal-like form resting among leaves on the forest floor.
Twisted fallen branches and roots cluster beneath slender trees in a shadowed woodland.
Negative-toned view of tangled branches and roots beneath slender woodland trees.
A narrow path winds through dense, shadowed woodland toward a bright canopy.
Negative-toned view of a winding path through dense woodland.
A dark recess opens among rocks, roots and dense forest vegetation.
Negative-toned view of a dark recess framed by rocks, roots and vegetation.
A pale, animal-like form lies curled among rocks and leaf litter beneath trees.
Negative-toned view of an animal-like form curled on the rocky forest floor.
Sunlight filters through trees onto a rough trail bordered by moss-covered rocks.
Negative-toned view of a rough woodland trail between trees and mossy rocks.
A large weathered rock rises from the forest floor against slender tree trunks.
Negative-toned view of a weathered rock framed by vertical tree trunks.
A winding path crosses a dim forest floor scattered with leaves and stones.
Negative-toned view of a winding woodland path covered with leaves and stones.
A wooden footbridge leads into a dense, shadowed forest.
Negative-toned view of a wooden footbridge disappearing into dense forest.
A woodland trail passes between trunks, exposed roots and patches of light.
Negative-toned view of a forest trail among trunks, roots and undergrowth.
A solitary stone-like figure stands among twisted trees in shafts of sunlight.
Negative-toned view of a stone-like figure framed by twisted woodland trees.
A narrow rocky trail disappears between trees beneath a dark forest canopy.
Negative-toned view of a rocky trail receding beneath the forest canopy.
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