In the heart of Paris stands Place de la République, a crossroads where lives briefly intersect. For five years, Thomas Boivin photographed the young Parisians who moved through it, capturing the fleeting harmony of the city. Place de la République has long been a meeting point for the city’s demands and hopes. Since the nineteenth century it has been a stage for protests, strikes, vigils and celebrations — a space where Paris shows itself to itself. Today it remains a symbolic square for assembly and daily life, and a place where young people come to spend time, talk, wait and watch. Boivin’s photographs form a quiet record of a generation growing up in a city that is always shifting. His camera picks out the small details, fashion, posture, gesture, that signal how young Parisians shape who they are and how they want to be seen. Together the portraits reflect how youth finds its place in the centre of the city: claiming space, crossing paths, marking out new ideas of identity, gender and belonging in the open air of the square. “I began visiting Place de la République in 2018, a vast square in the centre of Paris. On warm, sunlit mornings I would return, drawn to the chance of portraying the people who gathered there. “As the world seemed to grow more tense with each passing day, I found myself turning to youth, those on the threshold of adulthood. In their presence I glimpsed the shape of the society to come, and through them I discovered a renewed faith in our capacity to endure and to overcome the frailties of our time.” – Thomas Boivin Swiss bound using a deep blue fibreboard with a restrained uncoated nameplate, the book has been designed as a timeless portfolio. Each page is reproduced under the artist’s supervision, holding the quiet precision of the original prints.
