Bytagand the publication "Élise Caron – Where the world becomes an interior landscape"
There are people who pedal to move forward, and others to understand. Elise Caron, she does both. During a long interview, she spoke calmly, with this quiet clarity who prefers the direction to the demonstration. His sentences, sometimes winding, seemed to follow the rhythm of a track of gravel : detours, climbs, sudden clearings. Little by little, a thread emerged, that of a woman who learned to make the inside and the outside coincide, the momentum of the body and the intelligence of the gaze, the rigor of work and the freedom of adventure.
By Jeff Tatard – Photos: ©elisecaron
She spoke of the ultra and solitude, warm colors and GPS tracks, light and wood in the scenographies that she once imagined. She spoke about Grenoble, the BRM, this bike that is sometimes too modest for the harshness of a race, and that special peace that one only finds in the long hours of route.
She also spoke about images: about how to place typography on a sky, about taking on the ordinary of solitary travel, about opening the route to others by simply showing how she experiences it.
Everything in his story held together.Design became a method of reality, communication took the form of an ethic of care, and the bicycle became a way of thinking. More than a sport, a language of the world.
Élise Caron belongs to this generation of cyclists who reconcile the sensitive and the technical, the aesthetic and the effort..
When she's not in the saddle, she's designing stories for others : responsible for press relations at Origine Cycles, she uses her graphic tools to promote a French brand that, in its own way, wants to give power back to the cyclist. But as soon as she closes her computer, she becomes this solitary figure in an unknown terrain, seeking less the finish line than an inner path.
“I started cycling around 2018,” she says. “(…) But by going faster, and therefore seeing more beautiful things.”
She first documented this shift almost by accident, on InstagAriesThe images she publishes are striking for their visual coherence: warm tones, precise framing, a mixture of photography, drawing and typography.
She's not an influencer, she's a graphic designer who speaks with light.
This is where, without doubt, everything begins: in this quiet will of bytagwithout emphasis, to offer a perspective that takes the drama out of the adventure and makes reality poetic.
In his way of living the ultra, photography is never a sidelineIt even becomes its intimate measure.
“If I took a lot of photos, it’s because I was happy, present in what I was experiencing.”
It is a sign of harmony between effort and observation, a more accurate indicator than any hourly average.
Design as an ethics of the world
Before the bike, Elise Caron has long built worlds. Scenographer et space designer, she designs immersive environments for sports brands, places designed as stories to live.
This experience leaves traces: a way of thinking about it Coherence, deal with constraints,organize the unpredictable.
"In this profession, we know that there is 75% of what we can predict and 25% improvisation. It teaches you to let go."
A lesson that she now applies to cycling.. Roaming, ultra, it's nothing other than a great scenography of the world.
Ultra as a self-experience
For Elise, the ultra has nothing to do with a heroic feat. It is an art of rhythm, a pedagogy of time.
“What I like is the invisible collective that forms between the participants.”
Solitude, for her, is not a burden; it is a peace.
“I never felt in danger in an ultra. (…) The people you meet there (…) have the common goodwill of those who know what it’s like to go far.”
The body, the territory and the machine
For Élise, each race is a pretext for discovery.
The choice of an ultra is made first according to the territory: an unknown region, a new topography, a promise of still virgin landscapes from memory.
But she maintains a concrete lucidity: “Ultra is a rich man's sport, in a way. And I had to deal with that.”
This lucidity does not sound like a complaint or a posture: it is an observation, an ethics of reality.
The teaching of imbalance
Today, Élise lives in Grenoble. A deliberate choice: leave the Paris region for a city where you can, in twenty kilometers, climb the mountaintagne and disappear from the world.
She teaches, works, travelsIts balance does not depend on the absence of tension, but on the awareness of these tensions, on the way of making them interact.
The look and the color
When Elise talks about her images, she becomes precise, almost technical.
“I like warm colors. Even my blues are a little yellow.”
His photography is not decorative: she thinks like a designer.
There is, in his visual work, a joyful modesty : show without posing, say without imposing.
Intelligence of reality
At Origin Cycles, its role is that ofa mediator : understand the technical logic of engineers and translate it into a story.
“When I send out a press release, I want it to be beautiful. Not just for the sake of it: because beauty is a way of respecting the journalist.”
His approach has something artisanal about it., almost ethical.
We find the spirit of gravel there: doing well rather than quickly, preferring consistency to performance.
Women, place and movement
She observes: “The world of cycling remains marked by performance, but things are changing.”
Her tranquility in traveling alone inspires others to take the plunge.
Philosophy of movement
“Cycling is a stupid sport.” - Elise Caron |
But behind the provocation, there is a tenderness, a humanity.
What she means is that This sport teaches patience, consistency, humility.
“Motivation is what gets you started. Discipline is what keeps you going.”
This relationship with the body, neither constrained nor idealized, is part of his philosophy: accept the oscillations, welcome the troughs, keep pedaling, even gently.
The world as a large workshop
You might think that Élise Caron rides a bike to escape her job. In fact, she does the same thing: organize chaos, give it shape, create beauty with what there is.
Everything about her speaks of the same thing: consistency is key. Not that of control, but that of agreement between the outside and the inside.
In a world that values speed, Élise Caron pedals at her own paceShe doesn't seek to win, only to understand.
Perhaps his work, at bottom, is this: to transform the route in a creative workshop, movement in thought, and reality in the material of poetry.
| Élise Caron is the intelligence of the concrete, the gentleness of detail, the rigor of a clear line. She does not seek to shine; she illuminates...And in this wake of ochre dust and raking light, we understand that there are a thousand ways to go far, but that none is worth the one where the world, finally, becomes an interior landscape. |
To discover moretagand its universe, its images and its projects,
=> you can follow her on Instagram : @elisecaron
=> and browse his portfolio: Google Drive Portfolio
Everyone goes at their own pace; some need speed, others contemplation, others both. These are phases of life linked to our experiences. There is no better or worse. Each person must do what suits them. We are all more or less sensitive to our environment, competitive, eager for speed, but not at the same time or with the same appetite. We are all different, but we are made the same. Let's respect each other.