Khaled Youssef 

“Burn out” – Photographs

France

“Don't get me wrong, these men and women give everything every day to preserve our health and our lives.

But between two lives saved there are moments of calm, a space to let go in this humor that distinguishes the human being, to find refuge in the art of letting go, an art that caregivers, knowing so well the value of time, master perfectly.  

We look around, we grab the objects right at our fingertips, a quick search in the references, and here is a nurse in the skin of Pauline Borghese between bottles of physiological serum, the face of a doctor drowned in an abstraction correlated to his occupation, a nursing assistant who simulates “The Scream” of Goya, a group who poses for a souvenir photo of the Smurfs, and another one who revisits a painting by Raphael …

Ephemeral carnivals are invented during these rare moments of respite between two storms, laughter as a weapon in the face of difficult conditions, and humor as a response to the absurdity of everyday life.

Because derision and self-mockery not only find their place more than ever in difficult times, but even become an act of resistance.

So, in these intervals between the demands of reason, let’s be unreasonable and let’s not forget to smile and laugh, because joy, even though ephemeral, is THE major truth of our existence.”

Khaled Youssef (born in 1975 in Damascus, Syria) is a surgeon by profession, and a photographer and poet by passion living in Nice, France. He is a co-founder of the Syria.Art Association, who is organising this project.

For more information about the artist, check out: www.khaled-youssef.com.