“My favorite Place On Earth Was Huntington, Long Island”
École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne - ECAL (Switzerland) Master
Clara Stote
Image from “My favorite Place On Earth Was Huntington, Long Island” project by Clara Stote
Biography
Website: https://clarastote.com
Instagram: @_ziedonis_
I am a Belgian American photographer based in Lausanne. In 2022, I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication at HEAD (Geneva). I then settled in Paris, where I worked for a year and a half as a graphic designer for the brand Chantelle, while simultaneously developing my photography practice. In 2024, I started my Master’s degree in Photography at ECAL (Lausanne). My practice revolves around issues of gender and politics, with a focus on the influence of social media.
The project
My Favorite Place on Earth Was Huntington, Long Island explores identity, family and belonging. I am Belgian and American but born and raised in France, I have never lived in the United States. As a child, I idolized my American cousins, imitating them, adopting their mannerisms, and persistently asking my parents to move to the United States. Over time political differences created distance between us. That estrangement became the seed of this project, and its central question: had I grown up in the US, would I have become like them?
Through photographs of objects, fragmented bodies, and moments, I aim to oscillate between real, hyperreal, and surreal. Positioned between documentary and staged, the project also reflects on today’s American political landscape, where reality has become distorted and weaponized. The project sits inside that unease: What can you believe when no one can agree on what is real? This project is a construction of reality but also a conflict of what is real.
Image from “My favorite Place On Earth Was Huntington, Long Island” project by Clara Stote
Image from “My favorite Place On Earth Was Huntington, Long Island” project by Clara Stote