UNITED STAR OF EUROPE: FRANCE/FRANKREICH

My name is Anne-Sophie, I’m 41 and I work in a school library in France, in Poissy near Paris.

I collect lost or discarded tiny items I find on the ground, walking or wandering in the city. I’m used to pay attention to details, and to everyday poetry. I also like abandoned places, wastelands.

My instagram is puzzled_street. I post a photo a day. I sometimes have to walk a looong time to find a tiny treasure that waves to me or calls for help. That’s what I feel, a kind of connection with what is lost, rejected, abandoned, discarded, broken. It moves me. I do not see it as trash or waste. Every found item is a little joy in my heart, a little flame.

It also has something to do with modernity, my country, the way we live, “the consumer society”: why do you throw away or let go of something you owned? Is it useless? Dead? Don’t you care anymore? Do you get rid of the memory with the item? Why? What does it mean? The whole world is a question to me.
I think it could be a maze, a “puzzle”, or even a rebus. Will I find the ultimate answer? The ultimate item? I hope some day (the last day?), all will finally make sense in this huge ocean of nonsense and fear that is life.

Instagram: @puzzled_street