'For some people, curiosity killed the cat. For others, it is one of the greatest qualities, the very essence of photography. During lockdown I wondered how to stay curious, to keep traveling, looking and reaching out to others, to carry on advocating openness rather than withdrawal into oneself. While being confined in my living room, I opened a window on the world via Google Street View which is an incredible tool that allows us to travel through almost the entire planet. The pandemic was the primary focus of all discussions, such as an invisible but omnipresent monster. And it came from somewhere: Wuhan, where it all began, is apparently the place of origin of Covid-19; that former little-known city worldwide has become the receptacle of all rumors, accidentally thrown under the spotlight.
I made the images in Wuhan Radiography by directly photographing my computer screen during those virtual wanderings in the city. I used the Washi F film which is a medical x-ray film originally used to diagnose lung diseases. By chance, I noticed that the flash of my camera reflected on the screen had created a luminous halo hovering above the city and its inhabitants like an observing star. I like the idea of misusing a tool, of shaping a personal and deformed X-ray of one place like a fantasized and poetic version of it, a distorted vision, yet also acting as a certain form of exorcism.' (Simon Vansteenwinckel)
