Photographer Jean Paul NOGUES is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘SUSPENSIVE’. To see Jean Paul’s body of work, click on any photograph.

Initiated in 2022, this series is built through shibari sessions organized by women. Shibari is an ancient Japanese art that refers to how to tie and restrain a person with ropes. It is a practice that requires concentration, knowledge of safety rules, and respect for the attached person. Shibari provides an ambivalent erotic pleasure aroused by the slowness of the gestures and the sensations of tension and pressure exerted by the ropes. It is also an intellectual pleasure resulting from letting go and the trust given to the person who attaches.

Through these photographs, I try to account for the bodily stakes and the traces left on the skin that only can let us imagine the emotion felt by these women.

Giclee Fine Art prints on Awagami Bamboo paper

Jean Paul Noguès, a graduate in earth sciences and cinema, began his atypical work in the 2000s by making experimental films and video installations. His works have been presented in collective screenings at festivals or museums such as the PACA Frac, the Centre Pompidou or the Cinémathèque Française. 

He has been starting a personal and artistic reconstruction through photography in 2018, looking for "the contemplative moment » : those few seconds of suspended time where bodies and elements freeze and emotions crystallize. Attentive to moments of life, public or intimate, he practices the «found-created» described by Alain Bergala, with a refusal of the spectacular as subject or photographic value. His universe is crossed by the themes of human condition, nature, intimacy and abstraction. 

His photos have been exhibited at Off Arles, Rotterdam, Kyiv, San Sebastian, Phot'Aix, Besançon, published in the magazines Persona, Photo, Bizaphoto and collective works. His first photo book, published in 2023 by Photo#graphie. A visual and family introspection, entitled Achromaties d'un printemps.

All images and text © Jean Paul NOGUES