L'Europe Buissonnière

Wandering Europe (L’Europe buissonnière) is an obvious nod to Anthoine Blandin and the singular way he lived through the Second World War with the gaze of a child. In his eyes, innocence did not ignore violence, but rather allowed him to reveal a fragment of humanity within it. His account bears witness to a form of lucid naivety, one capable of finding meaning and wonder at the very heart of a troubled era.

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It is in this spirit that my project takes root. Today, Europe faces its own uncertainties: geopolitical tensions, climate disruption, ecological crisis, and a diffuse sense that the future has become harder to read. Yet, amid these fragilities, I seek to recover a simple, open gaze, one that can welcome surprise where habit tends to erase it.

Wandering Europe is an invitation to explore what is near as if it were far away, to rediscover this continent without seeking exoticism elsewhere. To walk, to observe, to allow oneself to slow down: to reconnect with a form of accessible, modest, yet essential wonder. The project questions our way of inhabiting the contemporary world while renewing the impulse of curiosity that Blandin carried with him, even in wartime.

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By traveling across today’s Europe with this renewed attention, I hope to create a dialogue between two eras: that of a child who moved through history while preserving a fragile light, and our own, in which that same light remains necessary if we are to continue seeing the world differently.