Invasion by Charles Pétillon

French photographer Charles Pétillon created the series ‘Invasion’, containing bundles of white, inflated balls within architectural spaces, neighborhoods and natural landscapes.

He considers each photo in his series a metaphor for either a period of time, an emotional sensation, or universal urban evolution.

In his Invasions series, Pétillon aims to use balloons to alter the way people perceive familiar things and spaces.

"These balloon invasions are metaphors," said the artist. "Their goal is to change the way in which we see the things we live alongside each day without really noticing them."

"It is our way of looking at things that I am trying to transform and revive, and therefore make it possible to go beyond practical perception to aesthetic experience: a visual emotion," he added.

To create the effects, Pétillon and his team inflated and tied together the balloons in a warehouse. They were then transported to the chosen locations and hung on aluminium structures.

The installations are photographed empty of people, with the balloons becoming the ghostly occupants of the spaces.

Using photography as the primary means of showing the work, constricts the emotive nature of a site based work, where one could inhabit the same space as the work of art to take in this new space and create new perceptions of familar places.

Pétillon chose white balloons to create a contrast with the locations. "The whiteness straightens the dualism, the contrast and absurdity versus the materials of the location."

"The conjunction of balloons' abstracts shapes and environment's one, allows me to create improbable, poetical objects."

Petillon heavily focuses on the aesthetics and visual impact of his work, and the further complexity is dervived from the individual questioning the site and the 'invading' baloon formations.

The photos will are exhibited at Maison Européene de la Photographie between the 20th of February until the 22th of March 2015.