French photographer Jean Yves Lemoigne composes men in Zentai suits across natural landscapes like an army of toy soldiers ready for battle for his series titled Human Project / War. Despite appearing like carefully positioned militia figurines, they are in fact the photographer himself putting on a sort of performance. The form-fitting attire masks each of his played characters in anonymity, exemplifying their unity in spite of their varying poses in scattered compositions.
The idea behind the series is that each person is a mere blip in the massive entity that is mankind. He says, “Man is an elementary particle in the global mass. The Zentai suit fits perfectly with this vision of man as an elementary particle. It makes any individual as uniform as possible. We stop distinguishing between faces, races and genders.”
The photographer's intriguing project also touches on the dual expectations of the modern man who is both praised for being a unique individual and respected for loyally following traditions. The military theme stems from this dichotomous idea of breeding leaders through obedience and uniformity. Lemoigne explains, “the army seemed like a relevant social entity for this series. The army already has a uniform and a color. The individual is subsumed by the larger military corps.”
