TMPC
“You’ll walk by feet, asshole!” »*… This pleonasm belched by a car driver still resonates after nine months of hitchhiking, tent on the back, across 20 countries of the European Union. If the person concerned only knew how lucky he has brought us!
In 1985 five countries (GDR, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands) decided to extend the benefit of free movement on their territories to nationals of signatory countries to the Schengen agreement. Control at internal borders will be abolished. In 2023, a desire to concretely experience this heritage was felt. From there, nine months of roaming under our shared roof. Or the quest for the feeling of “Heimat” borrowed from German, like a country that everyone would carry inside themselves.
TMPC transcribes an atmosphere of the road which borrows from “gonzo journalism”. Inscriptions of previous hitchhikers on the signs, decapitated Barbie, hand of terror in the back of a car, search for a peaceful corner to put the tent at nightfall… A wacky theater where everyone will see what they want to see see. But above all: the encounters around the road. A connection is established – or not – with the drivers, observation games take place… Sometimes, a fraternal intimacy is established.
“Without fire, nor place”, going against mass tourism, TMPC revisits the notion of free time through a human adventure combining wandering, daily encounters and introspection. It is the time of daily moves, of dogs howling in the night, of shared meals, of decapitated prejudices… The experience of a resonance in the world.
Implicitly, the point is about what the road provokes in those who travel along it to find something. The antonymy of different atmospheres as an allegory of the transition between old and new. Mixing tension and phlegm, a connection with the present moment, TMPC paradoxically translates a message of faith, confidence in the future. The next car that will stop, the next encounter, the next silence. The allegory is simple, the feeling less so.
This life could seem like a hassle. But through a singular approach, never plaintive, sometimes funny and almost fatalistic on the road, which takes and gives, we can distinguish a course.
Placidity. We sometimes “walked” like assholes. We even voluntarily gave our thumbs down to continue walking. It was just as good.
* Abbreviated as TMPC in French
Romain Coudrier (1992) is a French photographer who has studied communications and political science, now lives in Marseille. In his photography works he is mainly working on the relationship between man, street and nature.
