“In the euphoria of sleepless nights, in stomach-churning music, in the expenditure of vital energy and excessive alcohol, in flash photography and the exhaustion of bodies, I have tried to unite with what is foreign to me. But the night, like our bodies, ends, and every morning waking up is more painful.”

After Forever Young, a stroboscopic immersion into Generation Y, Elie Monferier questions the fate of bodies and the passage of time. By chemically altering the Forever Young prints, he delves into the exhaustion of the material, accelerates the degradation of his archives, and corrupts the printed image. The result is unique photographs, in 10x15cm format, where youth is suspended, trapped in an irreversible process of wear and tear. The world around him is nothing but fog, vertigo, and instability.

May You Stay is like a photographic memento mori, in which Elie Monferier continues to explore the question of vital energy and the complex connections we have with nature – that power that alters us and moves us in perpetual change.