craftzine.com/07/fi shheads
CRAFTER
FIN ART
B Y ERIC SMILLIE
Most artists would struggle to get good face from a fish. But French photographer and stage designer Anne-Catherine Becker-Echivard lands trophy shots as easily as her gilled buddies breathe water. “I play the stage manager,” she says coyly. “It’s totally natural for me.”
That’s probably because Becker-Echivard and fish go way back, to childhood vacations spent in the village of Pirou, on the Normandy coast. There, she explains, “I learned to catch them, to stack them in racks, to scale and clean them on the boat, and to smoke them myself. My brother and I played with them like dolls. I loved to have a sardine or a mackerel in my pocket.”
Youthful games became a full-blown obsession in 1997 when, at age 26, Becker-Echivard took nine months of instruction in documentary photography and began shooting elaborate scenes starring piscine protagonists. The scenarios can be over 6 feet long and take months to prepare, using wood, cardboard, paint, and other materials you might find in a set-design studio. For the characters, she fits fresh fish heads onto plastic doll bodies or wire forms. Her mother sews the costumes, turning the whole production into a family enterprise.
Only the best specimens will do. “The eyes are very important in the picture, and they must be dark,” she explains. She usually shops at Rungis, the world’s largest wholesale produce market, or at her local store in Paris’ Chinatown, the 13th Arrondissement. She has a soft spot for the sea bass’ facial structure
and serious air, and the whiting’s naïve and friendly looks, but she employs many varieties, depending on the characters and the atmosphere she wants her final picture to evoke. Once they’re cast, she pampers her actors with wet paper during the shoot, which can last a whole day. “It’s hot under the spotlights, so I just take care that my lead doesn’t get cooked before he gets his chance at fame,” she says dotingly.
All of this careful crafting, however, goes on behind the scenes. At the end of a shoot, she throws away the props. The public sees only the final product: large, dramatic prints swimming with commentary on human affairs (acbe.eu). “It’s like backstage at the theater,” she explains. “People are impressed when they learn that it’s all handmade, but the real setup is much less impressive, much less dreamlike.”
As for Becker-Echivard’s stars, the camaraderie goes only so far. “The fish also have to be fresh,” she adds, “because I eat them afterwards. If I have a lot, I even organize a big dinner with friends and family.” She likes to cook them on an open flame, “with just olive oil, herbes de Provence, lemon, salt, and pepper. Or in my favorite dish, bouillabaisse.”
As part of the festivities, Becker-Echivard takes each guest in turn and points out exactly which character he or she is eating. While some may consider this a bit unappetizing, others might call it tasteful art. ×
Eric Smillie is a freelance writer living in Oakland, Calif.
Photography by Graziella Antonini and Anne-Catherine Becker-Echivard (bottom)
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