The Line

Initiated in 2017 during the Résidence 1+2 in Toulouse, The Line is a photographic investigation into
the visual and symbolic legacy of the French Aéropostale. Developed over four months, two within the residency and two of independent research, the project draws on regional archives but, more decisively, on the literature surrounding the Aéropostale, notably Vol de nuit by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. These narratives, marked by heroism, solitude and transcendence, offered a starting point for questioning how certain stories are built and passed on.

Grounded in the route once followed by the early airmail service, from Toulouse to the Spanish border,
The Line keeps its distance from reenactment or nostalgia. Rather than reconstructing a historical reality, Sanna uses photography to explore the thin line between documented history and its fictional projections. His images follow the landscape left behind by aviation's early years, quiet infrastructures, residual paths, open and stripped down territories. Shot in black and white with a restrained formal approach, they favor quiet observation over spectacle.

Along this line, Sanna comes across ruins, emptiness, and objects of an almost unreal strangeness, such as a pilot's grave shaped like an airplane. These elements, which did not come from the archival research, nonetheless echo the project's literary fiction. This is where the real tips into the mythic.

After the residency, the project continued beyond Toulouse, through Spain and then Morocco, following the African stretch of the Line. What remains today is its final leg, to Saint Louis du Sénégal, the point from which Aéropostale planes set off across the South Atlantic toward the Americas.

The Line questions the role of photography not only as a witness to history, but as a participant in how a geography becomes legend.