SLEEPING HOUSE AGENCY EN

On the Breton coast, in the low season, the seaside resorts empty themselves and turn into vast deserted spaces for part of the year. Vacationers leave, sandcastles collapse. The closing of the shops foreshadows the winter break, the street cobblestones stop getting stamped, the bedlam of the children makes way for the bat of the waves on the shore. Time slows down, days become milder and the mugginess gradually sets in. The houses shut their eyelids and fall deeply asleep.

Sleeping House Agency is a photographic installation that features the codes of representation of estate agencies. This fictional agency specializes in the selling and the renting of inhabited seaside housing. Established in Bretagne, it hopes to showcase the local immovable heritage and the scarlet whiteness of its closed shutters.

With holiday homes ranging from 50 % to 80 % (source : INSEE), these seaside towns turned into ghost towns. The population that lives there all year long reduces each day and its average age increases. Young people who wish to settle in the region gravitate towards cities that are more dynamic all year long and more affordable. The economy, almost exclusively based on summer tourism, causes major problems that mark the territory profoundly ; the casualization, the property speculation and the seaside concreting are the main signs of this. These sudden changes modify the status of the Breton seaside town and alter its historical identity.

Logo created by Max Juette