Laurent Chéhère was born in Paris in 1972, where he lives and works. Through photography, reportage, and photomontage, he explores cities, suburbs, and towns.

Flying Houses is the artist’s most recent body of work, which he has been developing since 2012; these floating buildings offer a poetic vision of old Paris through which he questions his own era. Inspired by poor and cosmopolitan neighborhoods, the artist isolates these structures from their urban context and frees them from the anonymity of the street in order to tell the stories of the inhabitants’ lives, dreams, and hopes. Torn from their surroundings and elevated through the artist’s work, these buildings shift from being simple containers to becoming guardians of secrets and curiosities, as well as symbols and literary and cinematic references. Through a skylight or a window, we find ourselves immersed in the contemplations of Tarkovsky, the reveries of Kurosawa and Cocteau, the dramatic fantasies of Renoir, the Sicilian twilights of Visconti, the innocent darkness of Miyazaki, and the Fellinian extravagance in what can be considered a true declaration of love for cinema.

From afar, these fragile vessels appear carefree and dreamlike, yet up close the story becomes more complex. Laurent Chéhère provides viewers with certain interpretative keys, but these Flying Houses ultimately remain open to each person’s imagination and interpretation.