In Turkey the cardinal points are designated by colours: Ak, white, for the South; Kara, black, for the North. Thus the Mediterranean, the white sea, turns into the Black Sea at the Bosphorus strait, and it is precisely this place that Philippe Guionie chooses as the starting point for Swimming in the Black Sea. Made between 2004 and 2012, this series is inspired by Kéraban-le-Têtu, a Jules Verne novel recounting the tribulations of a rich Turkish merchant, Kéraban, who refuses to pay a tax unexpectedly imposed by the sultan for crossing the Bosphorus and decides to reach Constantinople by going around the Black Sea. This romantic story runs in outline behind this contemporary look at the sea; the photographer gradually detaches himself from it to build a subjective visual poem in acidulous colours. From the neighbouring Mediterranean break through the sweetness of life and the accents of the South, but this "wandering around a sea that one hardly sees" is so subtle that it summons both History with a capital H and more contemporary current affairs. The photographs in Georgia were made in 2012 as part of a photographic residency set up by the Tbilisi Photo Festival.