Quelque chose comme une araignée is an attempt to visualise the unthinkable thoughts we project onto bodies deemed insane. Psychiatric institutions remain places apart, stigmatised and stigmatising. From the outside, it crystallises unarticulated fears; on the inside, the dysfunctions and neuroses of our society are manifested in an exacerbated form. Caught in these nets, people suffering from mental disorders are subjected to aberrant treatments produced by the institutional system and to violent, fantasy-laden gazes from us.

This book is the result of a series of images taken in France and Senegal between 2022 and 2024 by Marion Gronier, who is accustomed to long periods of immersion in the environments she photographs. By scrutinising the somatic behaviours of the people who stay in these institutions, the photographer seeks to deconstruct the way we view them and to expose the processes of alienation and stigmatisation at work in our societies.