La traversée

RER Line C is the second most important railway network of Paris, it goes through 180 kilometers from point 0 of Notre Dame to a rural area like Dourdan, Etampes or Cergy Pontoise. Line C turns 40 years old this autumn. For this occasion, SNCF (the state French railway company) asked the photographer Clement Chapillon to explore its territory with a new look. Native from Paris, Clement followed the rails to rediscover its surroundings and captured unexpected things along the line. « RER is a part of the daily life of the inhabitants, it’s the agora, one of the only places where all people from ‘Le Grand Paris’ is crossing each other » says Chapillon. « It gives me the opportunity to rediscover and have a better understanding of the territory I always lived in ».

During his railway wanderings, he captured the variety of the places deserved by the train, the faces of Line C people and workers, and the life inside and outside of this Line. The trains, its colors, its silhouette, are part of the « Ile de France » environment, from high density urban to forests, fields and small remote villages.

At the end of the journey, a place that feels familiar shows another face and gives us a better idea of what this RER means for us. « We are the children of our landscapes » says the writer Lawrence Durrell and this Traversée shows us what the 550 000 children who take the RER Line C everyday look through the window of their trains.