books

01/03

Le bonheur au bout du guidon

Narrative · Around the world · 2005

Getting lost in the souks of Aleppo, on the trails of Cambodia or the Himalayan peaks: 833 days of adventure, 30,000 kilometres by bicycle and 27 countries crossed, in search of other people’s happiness.

Head of a start-up, Christophe Cousin chooses self-fulfilment and sets off alone, with the naivety of someone who does not know what he is looking for. The road has its ordeals: prison in Syria, where he is suspected of being an Israeli spy, hell on the road to Benares, the extreme isolation of a snowstorm in New Zealand, hunger and cold on the tracks of Catamarca, in Argentina. It also has the colours of happiness: the smile of a young novice monk in Ladakh, the zest for life of the kids in Peru, the smell of the harvest in Vietnam. Along the way, memories return of a child from a farming family in the Loiret, in search of treasure, his eyes turned towards the stars.

The book sold nearly 15,000 copies. The tapes filmed along the way, first kept as mere souvenirs, became a series, Le bonheur au bout du guidon (Voyage, 6 × 26 min, 2009).

A cyclist laden with panniers rides across a white salt flat, under a blue sky
On the Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia.
The bicycle and its luggage resting in the sand, at the foot of a dune
Yet another puncture, at the foot of the Tunisian dunes. Over 30,000 kilometres, they punctuate the journey.
The traveller sitting on a sandy track, beside his bicycle lying on its side
On the El Borma track, in Tunisia, deep in the Sahara.
Women and children lying on rugs, under a tent
In Mauritania, welcomed into the tent for tea.
A tent pitched near the bicycle, in front of earthen ruins
Camping at the foot of a ruined earthen fortress, between Yazd and Kerman.
A face in the half-light, bent over a notebook by candlelight
Every day, writing so as not to forget. Here, in a hut in New Zealand.

Extract

“That evening, I make my camp at the foot of the Laguna Salada, 4,400 metres above sea level. Once night has fallen, as the thermometer flirts with −15 °C, I slip into the sulphurous spring that feeds the lake. I am chilled to the bone. Little by little, my body burns. The water is at 40 °C. I lie down, only my head above the surface. […] I have known sublime skies, but however deeply I sound out my past, going all the way back to childhood, what I feel here is more primal still, something like an amniotic reminiscence.”

02/03

Sur la route des Utopies

Narrative · Two years on the road · 2007

Užupis, Libertalia, Harmony, Arcosanti… what if paradises existed? For two years, a quest for ideals and freedoms, among those who want to sow the promise of a better world, which may tomorrow be ours.

The road passes through the artists’ quarter of Užupis, in Lithuania, through Madagascar, where the pirate utopia of Libertalia is imagined, through Christiania, the Danish anarchist squat, and through the strange atmosphere of Auroville, India’s planetary village. It ends in the United States, over nearly 10,000 kilometres, on the road of the dharma bums. Everywhere, men, women and ideals.

The entrance sign of Užupis, “Užupio Res Publika”, with a smile, a 40 speed limit, the Mona Lisa and a way down to the water
The sign at the border of Užupis, the artists’ quarter of Vilnius that styles itself a republic.
Amish children in straw hats sitting on wooden stands
Amish children. An ideal that looks to yesterday, apart from the modern world.
Théa and Robert and their three children, in the grass, at Twin Oaks
Théa, 34, Robert, 31, and their children have lived at Twin Oaks for eight years. Here, paradise is not waited for: it is built together.
The red DeSoto at the end of a long straight road, seen from the level of the yellow line
“If only we don’t break down!” At the end of the straight road, the ideal recedes as you advance: perhaps that is what utopia is.

Extract

“I’m going to buy your rusty old DeSoto and then I’ll ride alongside the Amish carts, I’ll go all the way to Florida to meet Jesus and Mickey, I’ll spend my nights in the country’s communities, along the banks of the Mississippi, the ranches of Texas and the deserts of Arizona, ever further West as the pioneers of the New World did before me and, with both front wheels in the salt water, I’ll thank the Pacific for still being there and San Francisco for remembering Jack Kerouac and the dharma bums.”

03/03

Dans les roues de Jack KerouacPortraits d’une Amérique nomade

Narrative and photographs · United States · 2011

From New York to San Francisco, east to west, with On the Road in hand and America beneath the floor of the car.

With the photographer Matthieu Paley, Christophe Cousin sets off again on the trail and in the slipstream of Jack Kerouac, to pay tribute to the freedom-hungry heroes of the Beat Generation. They let themselves be guided by the tarmac and the desire for encounters, and let Kerouac’s words resonate over the landscapes of the present: the camera out of the window, the pen kept for the urgency of the moment, and the dream of reaching the West Coast flat out. Along the way, the rail-riding hobos, the harvesters of the Great Plains, the itinerant cowboys of Nevada, the Navajo shepherds, the utopians and others mad to live. On the clock, more than 8,000 kilometres at the heart of today’s nomadic America.

A folded map of the United States, the route traced by hand from coast to coast
The route, traced by hand: from New York to Portland via Minneapolis, Denver and Elko; then, from Denver, via Monument Valley, Big Mountain and Salvation Mountain, to Los Angeles, Big Sur and San Francisco.
A page of photographs from the journey: portraits, railway tracks, tepees, campfires, roads at night
Scenes from life and from the shoot. This journey gave rise to the book and to a film, Nomades Land aux USA 2.

A few pages

01 / 13
An opening spread: on the left, a man smoking, leaning against a brick wall, in black and white; on the right, on a yellow background, “New York, Minneapolis, 1,926 km”, then Elko, Big Mountain, San Francisco
The first day, in New York, “Spoiling for a fight”: the text, an old photo of a man leaning against a car, and two New York street photos
A red car speeds along a desert road; above it, the quote “‘Whoo! Here we go!’ yelled Neal”
A portrait page on a blue background, “Matt and Kelley, the travelling musicians”: three Polaroids of the couple in their van, and their interview
A man in a white bucket hat against a rusty railway wagon, at dusk, while a train passes, blurred, behind him
A stormy sky opening over a ploughed plain, and the quote “The train howled across the plains, rolling towards our desires.”
The eleventh day, from Cheyenne Wells to Denver, “Tar beneath the plains”: the text, crossed by a strip of road photos
A crowd dancing in a clearing, under tall pines, in the smoke and the morning light
Two people sitting by a campfire, in the desert, at nightfall
A portrait page on a blue background, “Leonard, the visionary”: three Polaroids of Leonard and his painted mountain, “God is love”, “Salvation”, and his interview
A blurred figure walking on a beach, and a long quote: “I was at the bottom of sadness. L.A. is the loneliest, most brutal of all American cities.”
The thirtieth day, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, “Further: for joy, for kicks!”: the text, a Kerouac quote, a couple in a bar, and the Jack Kerouac street sign, at night
The profile of a man at the wheel, at night, and the quote “I had reached the end; the continent was over”

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”Jack Kerouac