Claudine Doury 
France • Born: 1959
Solstice 

“It’s the longest day of the year, the day the sun seems to pause in the sky. Light floods the earth and resonates with all living things; life is reborn. The summer solstice is marked by traditional celebrations. Among Slavic peoples these are known as ‘Kupala’ and among Baltic peoples as ‘Kupolė’. Their roots lie in pagan festivals, closely linked to the forces of nature and to sun worship. These festivities honour the fertility of the earth, with rituals of renewal led by women singing around water and fire.”

Claudine Doury describes Solstice with clear, factual precision, while also weaving her own deeply personal and imaginative photographic narrative into ageold legends. As an empathetic observer and traveller, Doury has devoted her career to documenting parts of Central Asia, Crimea, and Siberia, exploring their stories with sensitivity and nuance.

Each year on 21st June, for the past decade, Doury has travelled to observe and photograph summer solstice rituals. She has captured the distinctive ways communities celebrate the return of the light in Saint Petersburg and Maloyaroslavets in Russia, on an island in Lake Ives in Belarus, in Kaunas and Vilnius, and across the Polish and Latvian countryside.

The rituals themselves feel timeless: bodies and homes decorated with flower garlands, purifying dips in rivers at dawn, and bonfires lit in recognition of an almost sacred connection with the natural world.

Doury’s images dive into these ancient ceremonies while also allowing presentday conflicts and sorrows to filter through. Her work explores the fragile line between transition and loss, between endings and new beginnings. She highlights the creative and quietly revolutionary power of women, and the enduring dialogue between past and present.

“I want to capture the invisible forces that move through these people and places on this unique day,” she explains.

As mystical as they are delicate, Doury’s photographs evoke the unseen energy that inhabits these landscapes at twilight, carrying with it a promise of renewal. Solstice invites us to reflect on roots and identity, and on the expressive, spiritual power of light. Through her lens, Doury pays tribute to the very essence of photography itself. 

Jardin Saint-Vincent.