In her series Observatoires, Noémie Goudal places stairs, pyramids and domes in natural, isolated, timeless spaces.

The structures were originally photographed in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The images were then printed on paper, which were stuck on card to form cut-outs. Finally, Goudal restages and reshoots these cardboard templates.

In their new setting, these two-dimensional paper structures take on an ephemeral quality. The folds in the cut-outs are left deliberately discernible, highlighting their fleeting existence in photographic space and their rough-and-ready construction.

Isolated and incongruous, the man-made structures and their seemingly conflicting settings play on our sense of scale, on what is natural, what is artifice, what belongs. Inspired by the cosmic architecture of India such as the observatories of Jai Singh II, Goudal’s Observatoires are likewise orientated towards the sky, observing it relentlessly.