In Arles, the ten projects selected this year by the Louis Roederer Foundation are considered, from selection to hanging, as a single exhibition.
Photographing from the breath
thus unfolds in an emblematic place of the festival, that of the Church of the Frères-Prêcheurs.
To discover
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“The 2022 edition of the Louis Roederer Discovery Prize is not attached to a theme or a genre in itself, but to an attitude of the selected photographers towards the creation of images.
The prism is that of the “pre-photographic” process: what motivates and gives birth to a project.
Here, the artists all talk about the intimate, from trauma to bereavement,” explains curator Taous Dahmani, supported by scenographer Amanda Antunes.
The 10 finalists selected out of the 280 eligible thus have a relationship to intimacy as a common denominator.
Behind the scenes of the visits of the jury of the 6th Madame Figaro Photo Prize, in Arles
From family drama to the history of a country
On July 8, Rahim Fortune received the Jury Prize (15,000 euros and part of his works included in the Rencontres collection) inside the ancient theater.
The 28-year-old African-American photographer, who lives between Austin and Brooklyn, returned to Texas in early 2020, at the bedside of his dying father.
His personal mourning will intersect with the history of his country, the murder of George Floyd, the protests to denounce racism and the violence of the police in the United States.
His series
I Can't Stand to See You
Cry
) establishes, through tender portraits of families, snapshots of suburban houses and the close-up of a scar - stigma of a bullet fired by the police - correspondences between his wounds and the fractures of the country.
Full screen
Rahim Fortuna.
Main Street
, series
I can't stand to see you cry
.
(2020).
Courtesy of Sasha Wolf Projects and the artist.
Russia honored
An intimate approach shared by Mika Sperling, Russian photographer, based in Hamburg, who received the Public Prize (endowed with 5000 euros) for his series
I Have Done Nothing Wrong (I did nothing wrong, Ed).
Interweaving text and image, she confronts her traumas, the sexual abuse of her grandfather, and tries to break this family and societal taboo of incest.
Full screen
Olga Grotova.
Sadovodstvo (Gardening)
, magazine, USSR, 1966, from the series
Our Grandmothers' Gardens
.
(2022).
Courtesy Olga Grotova (archive)
On the sidelines of these two prizes, the jury gave a special mention to Olga Grotova's project.
For
The Gardens of Our Grandmothers,
the Russian artist set off between Moscow and the Urals in search of the lost family garden, inventing genuine plant paintings for the occasion.
Exploring absence, lack, mourning, the Roederer Prize fulfills its mission: to highlight the emerging scene.
The 2022 edition resonates beyond the particular, sharing, to use Gaston Bachelard's formula, a "phenomenology of the soul".
The ten artists of the Louis Roederer Discovery Prize can be discovered until September 25 at the Church of the Frères-Prêcheurs in Arles, www.rencontres-arles.com