Susan Washington

[Jean Kosse](https://jeankosse.com/) didn’t set out to capture Flying Cranes. He was walking through a vintage market in Notting Hill when a patterned fabric stopped him in his tracks,  bold, rhythmic, alive. “I was immediately drawn to the symbolic patterns in the clothing,” he recalls. “At once, I saw a V-formation of cranes flying westward, a visual metaphor for the cyclical nature of life.” It’s the kind of vision that can’t be staged, only noticed, and it defines how he sees the world.

That single image, born from an ordinary moment, now takes on a new context in Paris. During Paris Photo Week, [FORM Gallery](https://form.photography/new_voices_exhibition) introduces NEW VOICES, a collective exhibition spotlighting photographers whose vision cuts through the visual noise of the digital era. Jean joins a lineup of emerging and established talents, each exploring what it means to truly be seen. His contribution, Flying Cranes, brings a quiet counterpoint to the broader conversation,  a work that invites stillness amid the hum of the fair.

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For Jean, this moment is both a culmination and a continuation. “It’s a triumph and a responsibility,” he says. “The culmination of a path I’ve already travelled, and the responsibility to keep moving forward and remain in the visual flow.” He also describes **NEW VOICES** as “an opportunity to engage with high art and to share my visual perspective on the world,” a chance to enter a dialogue that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant.

The photograph transforms an ordinary moment into something quietly extraordinary. What began as a fragment of fabric becomes a small act of perception, and proof that meaning doesn’t have to be constructed; sometimes it’s simply revealed. The rhythm of the pattern pulls you in, the repetition almost moving. The longer you look, the more it seems to shift between abstraction and recognition, between body and flight. “I hope viewers don’t take the image literally,” he says, “but rather notice and feel its subtle symbolism.”

Flying Cranes doesn’t ask for attention. It unfolds slowly, like something remembered. It captures exactly what Jean searches for,  stillness inside motion, silence inside sight.


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This photographer’s practice lives in the tension between what is seen and what is sensed. “Being seen,” he says, “is not about being noticed. It’s being understood on a subtle, nuanced level.” That idea resonates deeply within NEW VOICES, whose curatorial text asks, What does it mean to be seen? The question echoes through his work, which often invites the viewer to look longer, slower, and with a kind of visual empathy.

**“Being seen means being understood without words,”** the artist says,  a reflection that sits at the heart of both his work and the exhibition itself.

The exhibition text reflects on how artistic value risks being “flattened into metrics,  likes, shares, reach,  while the deeper currents of reflection and resonance are often overlooked.” It’s a question NEW VOICES puts directly to the artists: how do you resist that pressure to perform clarity in a world that mistrusts subtlety? Jean answers quietly: “My work invites viewers to look beyond perception and sense what is usually hidden. Its true value exists independently of metrics, algorithms, or social validation.”

His photographs carry that same deliberate calm, composed spaces for observation rather than reaction. That phrase of his stayed with me, the idea of finding the ordinary amid the speed of everything. It feels like both a challenge and an invitation: to notice what’s in front of us before it slips away, and to remember that art, at its best, slows time down.


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NEW VOICES, presented by FORM during Paris Photo Week, marks more than just a debut for this photographer. It represents an alignment between FORM’s curatorial eye and his personal ethos, both seeking meaning beyond surface. The exhibition, featuring a roster of emerging and mid-career photographers, brings together artists exploring visibility, connection, and the quiet. 

Jean’s contribution answers through restraint. In an environment where imagery often competes for attention, his work refuses urgency. Instead, it invites contemplation,  a quiet act of resistance against the noise. “I’ve learned that there’s no need to chase meanings,” he reflects. “They emerge on their own, as a derivative of life experience and identity.”

 He describes his work as “an invitation to a session of visual and aesthetic therapy,” an experience where the viewer’s own attention becomes part of the composition. “I want my images to hold energy, inspiration, and a sense of beauty in the ordinary,” he adds.
This philosophy aligns with FORM Gallery’s mission to support artists who bring new sensitivity to visual culture - those who, in their own way, are redefining how we look, not just what we look at.

Showing in Paris during Photo Week carries symbolic weight. For Jeant, it’s a conversation with history, with the lineage of photographers who came before and the evolving dialogue around what photography can be now. It’s also a moment of arrival, though he approaches it with humility. “Every exhibition is both an end and a beginning,” he says. “It’s a chance to pause, to reflect, and to move forward more consciously.”

In a week when images are everywhere, his work reminds me that the most powerful ones are often the quietest, the kind that linger in your mind long after you’ve looked away.


Jean Kosse: Stillness in Motion

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