BIANCO ORDINARIO - Hélène Bellenger

Launched in the summer of 2021, Hélène Bellenger’s Bianco Ordinario project draws its inspiration from the marble quarries of Carrara, nestled in the heart of the Apuan Alps in Italy. Sculpted for centuries for their exceptionally high-quality white marble, highly sought after by artists and designers, these quarries are now overexploited for the extraction of marble powder, pure calcium carbonate. Widely used in products such as toothpaste, makeup, paper, and cleaning agents, this powder has become part of the history of whitening, and by extension, the whiteness of contemporary Western societies.

Hélène Bellenger has assembled a collection of consumer products containing calcium carbonate, which she uses to print directly onto the reverse sides of packaging cartons. The luxurious and imperial imagery of marble statuary is thus reproduced on small packages, alongside a selection of landscapes shaped over centuries by the intensive exploitation of Carrara marble. Both precious and unique, yet ephemeral and disposable, these images—whose forms vary according to the products—compose a typology of industrial shapes, questioning their materiality and place within the consumerist flow.

The Bianco Ordinario project received support from DRAC Paca as part of its Aid for Creation (2021) program, as well as the Eurazeo x ENSP Photographer’s Grant (2022). It was developed during the 2023 research and post-production residency at the Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France (CPIF), which also supports this publication.

first edition

stock number: NB681