A thousand miles from the clichés of the discipline, Lucas Leffler seizes the creative gesture of the visual artist to question and redefine the nature of the photographic image.

Nurturing an interest in the pre-digital age, Lucas Leffler - a digital native born in 1993 - brings anachronistic processes into the present day: film and other alternative techniques based on centuries-old know-how. Like the pioneers of photography, he constantly faces technical obstacles. Of an obstinate nature and with an experimental approach as his driving energy, Lucas Leffler develops singular processes for fixing images on supports as varied as they are unexpected, betraying his fascination with the materiality of photography. An interest that he first developed as a lab technician. This professional experience enabled him to experience the technical-chemical mysteries that govern photography.

Beyond technical grammar, Lucas Leffler has a passion for industry. It's an interest that sprang up early on in the imagination of this native of Virton. And with good reason: the Burgo Ardennes paper mill in the Gaume landscape is an unsuspected industrial panorama that left an indelible imprint on his childhood. His two areas of fascination - technology and industry - quickly and naturally converge on a project that underpins and irrigates all his artistic reflections: to carry out an inventory of the state of the image industry, and more precisely of the digital shift which sacrificed the film tradition on the altar of technology. This subject leads him in the footsteps of the industry's global giants: Ilford, Agfa-Gevaert and Kodak.

As if to whisper to him that he's on the right track, the story of Agfa-Gevaert holds a most unexpected surprise. By a happy coincidence, Lucas Leffler unearths a "nugget": the story of two Gevaert employees who extracted between seven and thirteen kilos of silver per ton of mud from the muddy waters of a small river! Beyond the metaphor and mythological nature of the anecdote, the artist deduces that the concentration of silver residues in this mud could make it photosensitive. Between the imagined project and reality, some adjustments - and a few measurements of silver nitrate - are necessary. The photographer succeeds in fixing a permanent image on a plate of dried mud. With this series entitled Zilverbeek (silver stream), Lucas Leffler establishes himself as one of the most daring and innovative photographers of his generation. The enthusiasm is unanimous. Poet, magician and scientist, he takes the reproduction of an image into wild territories.

Another place, another story. Chalon-sur-Saône, home to two pillars of photographic heritage. Birthplace of Nicéphore Niépce, the town was also home to Kodak's factories since 1962. On site, Lucas Leffler points to a crucial year: 2007. It marked the collapse - literally and figuratively - of the film industry. Kodak's bankruptcy led the group to destroy its buildings. A few months earlier, the release of the first iPhone brutally revolutionised the cell phone industry. In the age of digital reign, Lucas Leffler is passionate about this technological transition, examining archival video footage of the implosion. In the massed crowd, arms are raised, armed with the first smartphones, almost ironically capturing the demise of an industry for which they were primarily responsible. These images of collapse provide food for thought. The particular case of Kodak resonates universally. Collapsology and collapse theory are the recurring motifs of a 21st century that began with the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.