The Vosges forest has gradually lost the tangible connection that once linked it to the collective imagination. Reduced to a space for production or transit, it deserves to be given back a place for encounter, emotion, and contemplation.
This project is rooted in the rediscovery of a forgotten local myth: the Houéran, a creature half-human, half-animal, and the ancestral guardian of the woods. A protective figure of times past, it embodied the strength and memory of the wild. Drawing on this legend, I explore what the forest reveals about us—about how we inhabit a landscape in transformation.
My walks and exchanges with foresters, loggers, and specialists have nourished this work. Sound recordings from interviews with these local actors complement the photographic series, giving a voice to those who live and work in these changing forests—shaped by the effects of drought, soil destabilisation, and the scars left by bark beetles. I seek to make this transformation visible while leaving room for the imaginary, as if the Houéran still wandered through these wounded spaces.
Developed over several years, this project combines documentary observation, sound collection, and visual research around themes of presence, trace, and disappearance. My photographs aim to convey the tension between reality and imagination, between what is revealed and what eludes us.
Le Houéran offers a sensitive reading of the Vosges forest: a place threaded with stories, memory, and instinct. An invitation to perceive, in the depths of a familiar landscape, the presence of a world that continues to speak to us.
Author biography
Arthur Perrin (b. 2002, Vosges, France) is a photographer whose work explores the boundary between the real and the imaginary, blending documentary and narrative approaches. His practice focuses on the connections between humans and their environment, the memory of places, and the stories that run through them.
After earning a baccalauréat littéraire with a specialization in cinema and audiovisual studies, he obtained a BTS in Photography. He is a member of the collective Le Matin Rose. His work, marked by a strong territorial grounding, examines how individuals inhabit spaces in transition. He regularly leads workshops and seminars on photographic storytelling and the imagination.
A recipient of the Aide à la création individuelle from the Grand Est region (2025), he has been developing the project Le Houéran for several years—a work-in-progress presented at the Refuge de création du Rupt de Bamont and at the Conseil départemental des Vosges. He is currently in residence for Réenchanter la vallée de la Plaine with the CTEAC, and at the Villa Pérochon, where he is developing Sortilèges contre la mégamachine, a new project dedicated to spirituality within environmental movements.