Originally published in 2018 and quickly out of print, the book Because is once again available, enriched with six new stories as well as seven new photographs.

In July 1985, artists Hervé Guibert, Jacques Monory, Denis Roche and Sophie Calle were invited to project and comment on their photographs during an evening at the Théâtre Antique in Arles. Denis Roche, who closed the program, presented his images in a very special way. “In the dark, he recounted the circumstances that presided over each shot before triggering the photographic act, then showed the images for the time it took to click.

It was from this click that the idea for Because was born. Like Denis Roche, Sophie Calle sets out to recount the reasons that led her to press the camera shutter. “Because of the temptation to follow it” justifies The White Line (2018), a photograph of a road demarcation line sinking beneath the water, “Because what else after nothing more?” is associated with Leaving Plurien (2018), a shot of the exit sign for the town of Plurien, opposite the cemetery. The book offers a two-stage discovery of the stories told by Sophie Calle. The image reveals itself to the reader after the text, hidden in the interstice of the Japanese binding.