With Maya Rochat, the bark of trees, their roots, the irregular patterns of rock and the regularity of flowers become abstract, dreamlike, psychedelic, almost cosmic images. Although exhibited at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the work of this Swiss artist, born in 1985, goes far beyond this medium. Of course, photographs are the basis of her work. But when she was a student, the artist began hijacking them, superimposing them, recycling them, tearing them up or spray-painting over them. After growing up in a forest, she discovered the city while studying in Lausanne and Hamburg. This new proximity to neo-liberal society and its setbacks brought her closer to feminist, ecologist and anti-capitalist activist circles. Already, the punk aesthetic was mingling with the natural motifs that never left her.

More than ten years into her career, Maya Rochat - visual artist, video artist, painter, performer, installation designer... - continues to experiment. She digitally retouches colours, physically superimposes photographs, and cuts print surfaces to create relief. Photography goes beyond the traditional framework. The metallic printing surfaces, ribbed by the artist, reflect the light on the floor. With projections of moving images on top of the prints, the exhibition mimics some of the artist's performances, where she paints directly on the projector - refusing total authorship and allowing the work to create itself, like nature reclaiming its rights.

Maya Rochat guides us through a symphony of common motifs, traversing the geological and organic worlds. She combines the grooves of wood with those of rock, and the veins of leaves with the stains on the lamella of a telescope or the patterns of a river carving its way through stone - as if she were trying to decode an underlying language. The infinitely large and the infinitely small mingle until they merge.

Maya Rochat reminds us that we are part of this whole, immersing us in installations where her images take over the floor, walls and ceiling. Our own bodies activate and transform the images reproduced on holographic, glittering or lenticular paper - like the cardboard illustrations of childhood that reveal another image when moved. She questions our role in nature and its transformations. Using garish paint on the prints and bleach on the negatives, she denounces a post-industrial world - where chemical substances are inseparable from living things.

But she rejects the catastrophic narrative of a world in crisis and violence, and instead seeks visual strategies to re-enchant it. She creates refuges, captivating images that draw us in, forcing us to observe them with attention and admiration. By altering the images of reality, Maya Rochat opens the doors to another universe - a magical, enveloping world that looks so much like our own and to which we could aspire.

Maya Rochat - Poetry of the Earth, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, until 1 October 2023