13TH DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY RENDEZVOUS July 2021 > April 2022 PRESS KIT / REPROGRAMMING

Centre photographique documentaire - ImageSingulières / Festival office 15-17 rue Lacan - 34200 Sète 04 67 18 27 54 / [email protected] /www.imagesingulieres.com

© Cecilia Reynoso

EDITO

The current health situation obliges us to cancel the scheduled dates of 12 to 30 May 2021 for the 13th edition of the documentary photography event, ImageSingulières. But the exhibition programme, which we prepared with care and diligence, will be maintained and rescheduled from July 2021 to April 2022. An occasion to begin our mutation and anticipate the change of name of our actual space “la Maison de l’Image Documentaire”. In fact, with increased space on the ground floor and before beginning a restructuration programme currently being considered with François Commeinhes, the mayor of Sète, we will henceforth be able to present two exhibitions as well as an installation on the outer wall and to organise screenings and other events in the courtyard. It is therefore at the “Centre photographique documentaire - ImageSingulières” that the 2021 festival programme will be launched on 3 July, with two or three exhibitions every two months, meetings, screenings, and all the other events that we usually offer during our cultural season. We warmly thank the photographers, our partners and the public for their confidence in us and their commitment, and invite you to join us for a crazy photographic season in Sète!

This singular summer will open with Laura Pannack’s striking portraits of young adolescents in the North of England which will be shown at Sète’s railway station from mid-May through April 2022. At the new Centre photographique documentaire - ImageSingulières, on the ground floor which we are using for the first time, Hugues de Wurstemberger’s 2021 residency project promises a poetic journey redrawing a portrait of the city and its environs. On the first floor, it is Ute Mahler’s Germany, before the Wall fell, with street views, and interiors, for an infinitely tender overview of private life in the former . Tendance Floue will retrace the 30 years of the collective with an imposing mural inspired by its film POESIS, on the outside wall. On the occasion of Brassens’ centenary, we present Clementine Schneidermann’s 2020 residency which searched out traces of the singer-poet, at the Musée Ethnographique de l’Etang de Thau.

Then, for the start of the new season in September, exhibitions of the winners of the 2019 and 2020 ISEM Grand Prize: Romain Laurendeau, for a dramatic dive into the world of drugs among Palestinian youth on the West Bank and Christian Lutz with his project looking at the rise of nationalism in old Europe. Next, women photographers will be in the forefront with the striking work of Marylise Vigneau “Article 19”, about a Pakistani law attacking freedom of speech and the arresting family saga of the young Argentinian photographer Cecilia Reynoso.

The environment will be at the heart of two exhibitions presented at the beginning of 2022. The series “Oil and Moss” by Igor Tereshkov, bears witness to the ravages of the petroleum industry in the autonomous region of Khantys-Mansis, in the heart of Russia, and Robin Friend’s “Bastard Countryside” explores the British countryside through metaphors showing how our modern way of life is destroying the planet. To close the season, we will show the work of Panos Kefalos about young Afghan migrants in Athens and that of Ioana Cirlig who brings us a tender portrait of post- industrial Romania.

The year will also see meetings, film screenings but also workshops, book signings...

Gilles FAVIER Valérie LAQUITTANT Artistic Director Director REPROGRAMMING 2021-2022

EXHIBITION AT THE CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES (Former: Maison de l'Image Documentaire - MID)

3 JULY > 5 SEPTEMBER 2021 13 JANUARY > 3 MARCH 2022 > Hugues de Wurstemberger / SÈTE #21 > Robin Friend / BASTARD COUNTRYSIDE > Ute Mahler / ZUSAMMENLEBEN > Igor Tereshkov / OIL AND MOSS > Tendance Floue / POESIS 17 MARCH > 1 MAY 2022 16 SEPTEMBER > 7 NOVEMBER 2021 > Panos Kefalos / SAINTS > Christian Lutz / CITIZENS > Ioana Cîrlig / POST-INDUSTRIAL STORIES > Romain Laurendeau / MISTER NICE GUY

18 NOVEMBER 2021 > 2 JANUARY 2022 > Cecilia Reynoso / THE FLOWERS FAMILY > Marylise Vigneau / ARTICLE 19

EXHIBITIONS HORS-LES-MURS MAY 2021 > APRIL 2022 > Laura Pannack / THE CRACKER - Gare SNCF de Sète JUNE > AUGUST 2021 > Clémentine Schneidermann/ SÈTE#20 - Musée Ethnographique de l'Étang de Thau, Bouzigues

PRACTICAL INFORMATION Free acces to the exhibitions (except for the Musée Ethnographique de l'Étang de Thau). The program of ImageSingulières is subject to the evolution of the health crisis. All the visits and events will take place in strict compliance with the sanitary measures and instructions in force and could be cancelled, modified or postponed due to government restrictions. EXHIBITIONS HORS-LES-MURS From May 2021 to April 2022

LAURA PANNACK THE CRACKER ENGLAND / INLAND

A vast wasteland stands between the two estates. ‘Tibby’ ; its cul-de-sac of residential houses curls around a small playground. Kids push prams with their hands above their heads or zip past on bikes. Through a narrow alleyway you enter the Cracker ; rolling grass lined with blackberries and stinging nettles. Motorbikes, peds and quads bark loudly every day and at all times. The boys race them until they burn out, perfecting the art of the wheelie. Horses are usually kept in the back gardens or local stables and are just as popular. The girls nestle around small fires despite the baking summer sun. On my second trip I discovered an entirely black Cracker, sporting the occasional patch of grass that had escaped a burning. On the adjacent side lies ‘The Lost City Estate’. Most of the boys meet at Jack Barrett’s bars (a metal fence that lies to the opening of the field). They perch and exchange stories, cigarettes and zoots alight referring to each other affectionately as ‘Mush’

© Laura Pannack / InLand I ‘m drawn to this area for its insular community. Everyone knows each other and the name. The community chose the name ‘The Lost City’ as they felt forgotten. With limited entertainment or inspiration and a lack of role models these young people do feel lost. The police battle against them. I want to explore the friendships, the unique language and tradition of the area and the characters that for me ; should not be lost or ignored.

+ As every year, with the faithful support of SNCF Gares & Connexions, the ImageSingulières festival takes over the Sète SNCF station, its corridors, its lobby and its facade. All year long, we will see a selection of "SÈTE#21", the residency work, and an anthology of the 2021-2022 programme.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Laura Pannack is a London based photographer. Renowned for her portraiture and social documentary work, she seeks to explore the complex relationship between subject and photographer. Her work has been extensively exhibited and published worldwide, including at the National Portrait Gallery, the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House and the Royal Festival Hall in London. www.laurapannack.com/

GARE SNCF DE SÈTE EXHIBITIONS Residency 2021 From 3 July to 5 September

HUGUES DE WURSTEMBERGER SÈTE #21 SWISS / VU'

Each year, ImageSingulières invites a photographer in residence in Sète and around the Bassin de Thau to create a carte blanche on the territory and its inhabitants. For the 2021 edition, the Swiss photographer Hugues de Wurstemberger has been chosen. The first thirteen residents invited to share their vision of Sète had to remain within the boundaries of the city’s area. Such constraints are quite often a source of inspiration and structure, as resulting exhibitions and books testify. This time, the area covered widened, and considerably so. And Hugues de Wurstemberger (or H2W for short) very much took advantage of this freedom – which is just like him. He roamed over a huge area that includes lakes with melodious names (Thau, Arnel, Vic, Ingrill), a lagoon and its waters, without being insensitive to the minerality of the cliffs of “White Stones” and “Creux de Miège”. He surveyed the area by foot – as he demonstrates with a few snap shots of his feet – which is still the best way to claim, evaluate and scan the space around, because the walker keeps his eyes opened at all times, which enables him, in summer and in winter alike and under intense lights, to find the right distance, to lengthen his breath and to make discoveries. Focusing his attention, he observes and captures in two stages the small changes that a landscape undergoes over a period of time, be it long or short. Thus is born a binary rhythm that matches walking, and suggestions, like many questions being raised, that are more decompositions than diptychs. As soon as the wind rises and shakes the leaves, the light turns and one comes back to look at a tree just a few months apart, this questioning comes up, soberly, about the way we see and perceive things. H2W walked and gave thought to the direction of his paths ; he observed, often closely, plants that he later © Hugues de Wurstemberger / VU' researched. He met people, men, women, youths, who live far from the city, some of them hunters, others fruit and vegetable growers, wine producers, all of this relying on organic and permacultural processes, which corresponds to the photographer’s concerns and values. From the people he met, he learnt much – because he is always curious, wanting to know more about nature, its challenges, its mutilations, what still is and always will be possible. He collaborated with those who know and photographed them without any consideration for the “portrait” genre ; he was clearly in the moment of the encounter, finding, here again, the relevant distance, as he was able to with the space that he traversed while observing it. In his own way, H2W resumed many approaches that had been started long ago or more recently. He developed and dug tracks that are deeply his own. The walker is the same, already demonstrating an eye for detail, as the one who explored the mountain of the Freiburg region in his native Switzerland, squaring the landscape, going out to meet farmers and cattle that he eventually gathered in a book ; the same who accompanied his partner Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, who once immortalised his burning hiking shoes. These were the days of the square format, of black and white, which he has rediscovered, with more calm, with its subtle range of greys, capturing the musical stave of a

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES flamingo flight to mark the pace of his journey through the Sète country. But this is also a new photographer, one who has not yet shown the colours he has been developing over the past fifteen years or so and who has decided to focus on inventing a water and floral palette in a dialogue with his most recent research. A teacher since 2005 at the 75 in Brussels, he has addressed the topic of colours with his students while cultivating his garden. With the help of expert friends, he has gradually enriched it and photographed it to make a herbarium that keeps evolving, growing, expanding with new varieties, in a blend of flowers and fruits. The two activities, teaching and gardening, are certainly related, in intensity at least, and have manifested in this approach to colour. A realistic as much as inconsequential approach, subtle and vibrant, which can testify to the delicate light that strokes the water surfaces as well as the organisation, the textures, the shapes of plants and rocks. It also has the ability to make one feel and share the variations between two moments or two seasons. A kind of photography linked to time through colour itself. Like an echo of Penone’s works, which he admires.

Constraint is indeed a wonderful way of achieving rigour. As in this work for which H2W strived to work in a vertical format, which he sees as an avatar of the square. Even though, as he puts it, with his irresistible humour, “it’s not SÈTE #21 - HUGUES DE WURSTEMBERGER easy to set a pond vertically.” Text : Christian Caujolle Christian Caujolle Publishers : CéTàVOIR, LE BEC EN L’AIR ÉDITIONS Released : Mai 2021 The residency is supported by the Fonds de dotation Art, Culture et Print : 20 x 25 cm, 96 pages Patrimoine. French – English Price : 27 € (hors frais de port)

Available in pre-order on www.imagesingulieres.com

+ Book signing SÈTE#21 on 3rd et 4th July 2021

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Swiss photographer, born in 1955, member of Agence VU' since its creation in 1986 and represented by Galerie VU', lives in Brussels where he teaches photography. As a former member of the Swiss Guard, Hugues de Wurstemberger first made a name for himself thanks to the photographs he took of the Swiss Guard daily life, which were brought together for an exhibition in 1985 at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne. His work was granted in 1990 by the Niépce Prize, in 1991 by the World Press Photo, and in 2002 by the Silver Prize. In the perspective of transfiguring the banality of the ordinary by the grace of a fair distance, between tenderness and smile, he also devotes himself to subjects that are closer to him. In 1995, he photographed the farmers in the Swiss mountains, who are a "counterpoint to the Switzerland of banks and cleanliness", fighting against the modernization and standardization of lifestyles. In 2005, "AOC, une identité retrouvée" (Infolio) was published, as well as "Pauline et Pierre" (Quo Vadis), a family that brings together over 18 years the "little white pebbles" of his two children's youth. http://h2w.xyz/ EXHIBITIONS From 3 July to 5 September

UTE MAHLER ZUSAMMENLEBEN GERMANY / OSTKREUZ

Ute Mahler (born in Berka in 1949) is one of the photographers from the ex-GDR with the most prominent style. After the fall of the Wall, with several East German colleagues she founded the agency OSTKREUZ, that has since been very successful. Through the series Zusammenleben (Live together), begun over forty-five years ago, she intended to show the way in which people live together and depict the unsaid in a subtle way. These black and white photos gently, but uncompromisingly, illustrate life in former East Germany. In 1988, Ute Mahler ended this series of infinite possible compositions with men, women, children, friends and strangers, as she felt that she had captured the © Ute Mahler / OSTKREUZ essentials.

Ute Mahler talks about her work in 2019 with exhibition curator Sonia Voss: ‘I was still a student in when I began to photograph groups of people. To begin with, they were just random. But they all raised the same question: how do people interact together? (…) I was twenty or so years old. I wanted answers. I wanted to see what was hiding behind the prescribed official false optimism. I was looking for the truth in the inner realm of people’s lives. (…) I met them in their homes, in the street, at parties and in their day-to-day lives that they were living in this country that they called GDR. (…) I carried out this work freely, at liberty; it was very personal in nature and not commissioned. Without any staging. (…) But I took them for myself. (…) I wasn’t looking for anything sensational, I wanted to find something universal, extending from tenuous relationships, family and friendship, depicting happiness, impermanence, despair, resignation and/or proximity. I took my last photo in 1988. I felt that I had found enough answers to my questions. Maybe it was linked to the political upheaval at the time but I’m not sure.’

+ Discover the exhibition « Zusammenleben » in an exclusive video format on the website www.la-mid.fr.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Ute Mahler (1949, Berka) studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig from 1969 to 1974 and then worked as a freelance photographer. Starting from 1977, she received commissions from Sibylle magazine and the Amiga, for which she took fashion photographs and portraits mainly to illustrate the record sleeves of East German rock groups. She also is developing a long-term piece of work called Zusammenleben (Live together), subtly depicting the reality of everyday life in the GDR and the dynamics that exist between private and collective. In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mahler founded the photography agency OSTKREUZ with her six colleagues. Alongside her personal projects, she has taught photography since 2000, firstly at the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in then at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. Since 2009 she has produced various series with her husband the photographer Werner Mahler (Monalisen der Vorstädte, Die seltsamen Tage, Kleinstadt). www.ostkreuz.de/fotografen/ute-mahler/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS From 3 July to 5 September

TENDANCE FLOUE POESIS FRANCE

« The title of Tendance Floue’s new opus is POESIS. from the Greek word that signifies creation. Here of course it is again a question of inventing and re-inventing in images. It is our function; to adopt a view-point, to focus on a blurred image and show the images that appear. This new page of our collective work has thus its place in a contemporary movement of artistic resistance. It is our role, to stand beside those engaged in defending the permanent celebration of a poetic vision ; the magic of looking at the moon and seeing it for the first time. Nowadays, during this barbaric epoque of consumption when the universe is slowly consumed, it is urgent to declare the freedom of the emotions ; to desire, not to © Tendance Floue hope ; to evoke the unknown, to question the power of our imagination, to feed the language of the image with poetry and mystery. Photography cannot change the world, but it can take part in the process of change. Let us celebrate together in our vision, this savoury damnation. »

Photographers : Pascal Aimar, Thierry Ardouin, Denis Bourges, Gilles Coulon, Olivier Culmann, Ljubiša Danilović, Grégoire Eloy, Mat Jacob, Caty Jan, Yohanne Lamoulère, Philippe Lopparelli, Bertrand Meunier, Meyer, Flore-Aël Surun, Patrick Tourneboeuf, Alain Willaume Direction : Meyer Editing : Félix Fouchet

With the support of Fujifilm France

nd + Projection of POESIS movie on friday 2 july 2021 nd + Book signing by members of Tendance Floue collective on friday 2 july 2021

THE COLLECTIVE

Founded in 1991, Tendance Floue is a group of 16 French photographers. It has won international recognition and won awards for its work, which intersects social, cultural, documentary and artistic concerns. Forever exploring the world against the grain of a westernized image, revealing the hidden side of exposed issues, capturing unique moments. For 30 years, an indefinable alchemy of ideas and energies have made it possible not only to create a new and original photographic language, but also to question the photojournalistic tendencies and attempt to renew the field of narration. Beyond their individual approaches, the 16 photographers, in a collective spirit, have launched into a photographic adventure of a different order, all-encompassing and akin to performance. Comparing pictures, putting others together, forming combinations: work which is done together engenders new organic matter. https://tendancefloue.net/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS HORS-LES-MURS from June to August 2021

CLÉMENTINE SCHNEIDERMANN SÈTE#20 FRANCE

«Come near, you whose eyes sparkle bright » This first verse from The Legend of the Nun, written by Victor Hugo in 1828 and recorded by Georges Brassens in 1956, is an order to which many photographers could subscribe as they too address it, in their own way, to all who look at their pictures, and more generally to all who are convinced that seeing is essential. This could be a sort of guide for Clémentine Schneidermann, who, following in the footsteps of twelve other photographers, has immersed herself in the Sète region, to meet people and characters, spaces and lights. And cats too. She did so with a sparkle in her eye, which, as usual, was careful to avoid categories, practising a gentle and inquisitive form of documentary that verges on the staging of fashion, as well as sociology, or even ethnology, creating a tension that convinces us that the real – or what we consider as such – is an inexhaustible source of fictions. Clémentine Schneidermann travelled through Sète and the surrounding towns in sunny weather, but did not insist on the warmth. Instead, she decided to use half- © Clémentine Schneidermann tones, at all levels, enabling her to present a comfortable and flexible vision. She does not describe; rather she takes us through ochre spaces, the angles of which are never too blunt and quietly await passers-by or, as they turn into decors, welcome characters. [...] Christian Caujolle The residency is supported by the Fonds de dotation Art, Culture et Patrimoine.

+ Exhibition presented in the trail of the Brassens Centenary

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Clementine Schneidermann is a French photographer. She developed her first series in Wales where she moved in 2012 prior to her studies in documentary photography at University of South Wales, Newport. She is interested in the representation of class and communities in the United Kingdom and started a collaboration with Charlotte James, a Welsh creative director and with groups of children since 2015 in the South Wales valleys. The photographs are a cross between documentary and fashion and are both surreal yet fixed into the real. Her work received the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award in 2016. Her documentary project "I Called her Lisa Marie" was published by Chose Commune as a monograph in 2018. Her work recently became part of the Martin Parr Foundation collection and is also included in the National Museum of Wales collection. https://www.clementineschneider.com/

MUSÉE ETHNOGRAPHIQUE DE L'ÉTANG DE THAU PRIZES

ISEM DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZES 2021 / 4e ÉDITION

How many talented photographers, in France or elsewhere, lack the means to finish a project? How many, after spending several months documenting a subject, stop. Because their subject is more complex than they had thought, because it requires more time than they imagined. Photographers then go on to other things hoping to find a more lucrative story, requiring less of their own funding.

It is in order to support these difficult projects that the ImageSingulières festival, the news service Mediapart and ETPA, the photography and game design school in Toulouse, have committed themselves since 2018 to two awards :

The ISEM Grand Prize is open to photographers around the world. With an endowment of 8000 euros, it is intended to help complete a documentary project already in progress. The prize is to be used to finalise the winning work. Once the winners are announced, the project will be presented in portfolio form on Mediapart and once completed, will be exhibited at ImageSingulières.

The second prize, ISEM Young Photographer Prize is for those under 26 years of age residing in France. With an endowment of 2000 euros, it is also to support a work in progress and will be published on Mediapart. The winner may also attend a 3rd year Masterclass at the ETPA.

ISEM Prize award 2021 Finalists announced on 12 May 2021 Prizes awarded on 16 september 2021 at 19h

2020 winners ISEM Grand prize 2020 : Chirstian Lutz ISEM Young Photographer Prize: Julia Gat

2019 winners ISEM Grand prize 2019 : Romain Laurendeau ISEM Young Photographer Prize: Maxime Matthys

2018 winners ISEM Grand prize 2018 : John Trotter ISEM Young Photographer Prize: Valentin Russo EXHIBITIONS ISEM GRAND PRIZE 2020 From 16 September to 7 November 2021 for documentary photography

CHRISTIAN LUTZ CITIZENS SWISS / MAPS

I live in Switzerland, a country where the far right is the main political party in government. The strength of populist right-wing parties affects all of Europe. For 7 years, I crossed Europe following these “common sense” parties who promise a better life. Populism is an evil fairy, it appeals with promises of future happiness. It tries to make us forget that its tendrils are toxic, that it produces segregation, exclusion, misery. Its arguments send us back to our physical and symbolic borders; it sows the seeds of social unrest, fear; stifling thought and human bonds. It manipulates © Christian Lutz / MAPS our minds and our instincts. The parties spreading this ideology are familiar birds, who strike suddenly. They blend into the landscape, live in industrial waste sites, in calm, bourgeois cities, in the look of individuals. They are present in every instance of inattention to our moral values, in every crack that fear inhabits. This story is a bit the tale of a Europe In touch with itself and the redefinition of its values. Christian Lutz

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Between 2003 and 2012, Christian Lutz produced a trilogy on the theme of power: politics with Protokoll, economics with Tropical Gift and religion with In Jesus’ Name. Each part has appeared as a book, published by Lars Müller, and each has been exhibited many times. Christian Lutz graduated from the ESA 75 art school in Brussels. He joined the VU agency in 2007 and co-founded MAPS in 2017. A photographer’s approach is based on a scrupulous observation of society’s dynamics. In 2016 he published Insert Coins (André Frère Editions) and in 2019 The Pearl River (Patrick Frey Editions). These two series were exhibited at the 50th Rencontres de la photographie in Arles in 2019, with the title Eldorado. http://www.christianlutz.org/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS ISEM GRAND PRIZE 2019 From 16 September to 7 November 2021 for documentary photography

ROMAIN LAURENDEAU MISTER NICE GUY FRANCE / HANS LUCAS

Israelians and Palestinians live side by side, sometimes intermingled, but always in partitioned areas. Almost everything differentiates them and yet, in recent years, drug use has continued to increase on both sides. The latest fashionable substance for youth is “Mister Nice Guy”. Mister Nice Guy is a synthetic cannabis 50 to 100 times more powerful than marijuana and much more dangerous. It comes in the form of grass onto which various products have been sprayed: acetone, pesticides, speed and sometimes even rat poison. The high is short and violent and addiction is immediate. The impact on health is disastrous: kidney and liver problems, dizziness, © Romain Laurendeau / Hans Lucas delirium and paranoia, depression. This drug first arrived quietly in the Palestinian Occupied Territories: via Israel where it was legal up to 2013 and very popular with young conscripts in the Israeli army. Since its introduction, labs have grown up like mushrooms in the neighbouring West Bank. The association Al Sadiq’s detox centre is in Al’Eizariya in the West Bank, a few kilometres as the crow flies from Jerusalem, but on the other side of the wall. It is found in one of the numerous Palestinian “buffer zones”, left to themselves, and among the most affected by drug trafficking and use. It is one of the only treatment centres in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. It is also the oldest and the toughest. With its practice of total confinement and withdrawal without drugs, il accepts around 30 patients for periods of several months. These addicts are younger and younger, and almost all have succumbed to “Mister Nice Guy.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

After training as a photographer, Romain contracted kerataconus, an ailment that progressively deforms the cornea. During the years of this illness, he explored intimacy, through introspective series which were fed by his doubts. In 2009, a corneal transplant saved his sight. It was a liberation. He was overwhelmed by a thirst for freedom and the desire to understand the world. Since then he hasn’t stopped travelling in order to document the human condition in all its aspects, social, economic and political. In Senegal, for 3 years he worked on topical subjects, in particular gold miners. Since 2014, he has worked on a long-term and fundamental project on a country little covered by the French press: Algeria. www. romainlaurendeau.myportfolio.com/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS From 18 November 2021 to 2 January 2022

CECILIA REYNOSO THE FLOWERS FAMILY ARGENTINA

In 2009, on Christmas, I took the first photo of what it would be the work on my extended family: “The Flowers Family”. It's a group photo and also a self-portrait. There are parents, grandparents and great grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, in-laws, twins, and a newborn, eighteen in total. Now, some of them are gone, there are newborns, including my son, some couples are new and some are dissolved. Pedro, the great-grandfather used to say: “I'm a billionaire because of the family I have”, he truly felt that way and that fascinated me. In Argentina, it's a common saying that family and friends are sacred. We take affections very seriously. Don't even think of skipping a Sunday meal, a birthday, © Cecilia Reynoso or Christmas. These special moments are pretexts to get together. Like most families here, mine goes back to Italian and Spanish immigrants, with the exuberance typical of Buenos Aires middle-class suburbia. I've taken most of the photographs at my in-law’s house, sometimes I just have to step back a little to get a sense of unreality, like I was witnessing a tableau vivant or a scene taking place in Luchino Visconti's film “Rocco and his Brothers”. They are a very loud, playful family, with lots of hugs and kisses, affectionate and physical. In some opportunities, I ask them if I can take their portrait alone, so we go to a quiet space of the house and connect more intimately. I´m mostly interested in depicting the beauty of youth and the dignity of age within the family members, just like the cycle of flowers. It´s important to me not just to be an observer but to keep a balance between being in and out of the scenes, but if I feel I´m becoming disconnected, I put the camera away and just enjoy the conversation. I sense of connection is crucial to my work because it’s important that they feel relaxed and trust me when I photograph them. Cecilia Reynoso

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Born in 1980 in Buenos Aires, Cecilia studied cinema. For twelve years, she has photographed the family of her companion, focusing on the relationship to the body of members of this community. A meal where everyone is gathered around the table, games of young people stacked on top of each other, moments of the end of life for old people: everything takes place in absolute physical proximity. Cecilia’s photos tell of the intimate moments of a close-knit family. But they also tell the story of the creative process behind the aesthetic approach. A process that is woven together around a world of invisible references. Among her influences, she cites Italian cinema, and more particularly that of Luchino Visconti. She also says she draws her inspiration from family and group portrait photography. http://www.ceciliareynoso.com.ar/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS From 18 November 2021 to 2 January 2022

MARYLISE VIGNEAU ARTICLE 19 FRANCE / ANZENBERGER

The article 19 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan says: “Freedom of speech: Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of the press, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defense of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, commission of or incitement to an offence.” These “reasonable” restrictions are often exploited © Marylise Vigneau / Anzenberger against different groups of people such as minorities, journalists, human rights activists, atheists, homosexuals, etc. They are interpreted as a freedom to disregard others’ faiths or perceptions. They produce outcasts. Status quo and ruling alliances, liberty- fearing and frustrated people led by radical, obscurantist or manipulative clerics, all acting in the name of a so-called decency, build a wall around these fabricated pariahs and silence them. In the recent years, the enforcement of Pakistan's blasphemy laws remain a significant concern, as well as new laws to extend controls over the right to freedom of expression online. Killings and attacks on journalists, media workers and human rights defenders remain endemic and characterized by ongoing impunity. This story takes place in Lahore and constitutes a series of portraits of people whose way of thinking, living, loving, is obviously against the official Pakistani narrative. It is a story of suffering but also of resilience and hope. After long conversations, these images have been carefully staged to respect the safety and therefore the anonymity of the people pictured. Each of them is named "Noor", a name that means light and is used indifferently for women and men. They are the cracks in the system through which change may arise. This work is dedicated to the memory of Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer who dedicated her life to defending minorities and died in Lahore in 2018.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Raised in a conventional Parisian family, Marylise Vigneau developed an early taste for peeping through keyholes and climbing walls. Her “Compared Literature” thesis, at the Sorbonne, was about cities as characters in Russian and Central-European novels; where and when the clearest narrative gets lost in a heady, haunting uncertainty. Despite her fascination with literature, over time her mode of expression has become photography, without her knowing precisely why - maybe the mix of precision, immediacy, truth and lies which is behind every image. What attracts her first and foremost is how human beings are affected by borders both physical and mental, this fugitive space where an unexpected, bold and fragile act or glimpse of freedom can arise. She is represented by the Anzenberger Agency in Vienna. www.marylisevigneau.com/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS From 13 January to 3 March 2022

ROBIN FRIEND BASTARD COUNTRYSIDE ENGLAND

‘Bastard Countryside’ explores the British landscape as a series of metaphors. Each photograph represents a small part of the story of how our modern living is destroying the planet. Although the series has been made in the UK, the subjects and themes are global and invite the viewer to reflect on the actions that have shaped and shifted the spaces they relate to in these pictures. Many of the photographs in this series possess a magical sadness and inhabit what Victor Hugo described as “that kind of bastard countryside, somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures… The end of the beaten track, the beginning of the passions”. Hugo also described how observing a city’s edge “is to observe an amphibian”; thinking of the Paris periphery as a living, breathing creature pushing out and changing everything in its wake, blurring the city/countryside divide. Fast forward two hundred years, and Hugo’s amphibian has © Robin Friend grown tentacles on steroids and is not just devouring everything in its path, but shitting and puking incessantly as well. The “Bastard Countryside” is no longer found in the fringe areas, it’s everywhere you look. Central to this story is the struggle between humanity and nature, two contrasting forces fighting for control. But there’s also a part of Bastard Countryside that resides someplace else; in a fictive realm that gestures towards some unknown, a less certain landscape. With a feeling of things left behind and what is still to come, these pictures tap into our cultural anxiety of what the future holds and how we are leaving this planet broken for generations to come.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Robin Friend was born in London but spent his childhood in Melbourne, Australia. His time is split between personal projects and commissions. He uses his camera to investigate the uneasy relationship between human beings and nature, taking exquisite photographs that reveal the various ways, both subtle and overt, in which we encroach upon the natural environment. Working in thematic series, Friend approaches his subjects with an explorer’s adventurousness, an activist’s concern, and an artist’s sensitivity to beauty. Exhibited worldwide, his work is featured in the book “Bastard Countryside” published by Loose Joints in 2018. www.robinfriend.co.uk/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS From 13 January to 3 March 2022

IGOR TERESHKOV OIL AND MOSS RUSSIA

The primary cause of global warming is human activity that releases carbon into the atmosphere, most significantly the burning of fossil fuels. This photos shot in KhMAO the district were produced about 50% of oil in Russia. This work shows how irresponsibly we treat fossils even at the producing stage, what damage does it bring to Indigenous People, nature and traditional way of life. Fossil fuels developing primarily affects those who are most vulnerable, those who receive in fact the least benefit from the use of this resources. From these dishonesty and violations of people’s rights — climate crisis begins. Now the impact of our activities are noticeable around the world, but the climate changing begins with specific violations, places and people. Near Surgut (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug) in Russkinskaya village lives Antonina Tevlina from Khanty people, her parents still live an indigenous way of life. Nomadize and grazing reindeers at their ancestral territory of about 600 hectares and they faced a problem, oil producers came to their land. Companies mount checkpoints on roads, now only close relatives on lists can get to territory of ancestral lands, some guests of family are have to dress up to national Khanty people clothes in case of go throw checkpoints. «Yagel moss is like a bread for a deer, if something happens it took around 30 years to restore» — says Antonina Tevlina. Pollution of water and lakes, destruction of ecosystem, all this leads to a reduction of number of reindeers and endanger the traditional way of life of Indigenous people. © Igor Tereshkov Shot on 35 mm film, oil-containing liquid from oil spills was used during film developing. Oil randomly destroys gelatinous flesh of film deform it with holes and scratches exactly as harmed environment deformed under the oil spillage.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Igor Tereshkov Russia based photographer and visual artist, b.1989 Energodar. Working in mixed media including performative practices, site specific art, documentary and alternative process photography mediums. Study documentary photography and photojournalism, at School of Modern Photography Docdocdoc in Saint-Petersburg, in 2019 was graduated from course «Experiences of Contemporary Photography». In his work researching themes of environment, ecology and Anthropocene. Tereshkov been a winner and nominated of various international competitions and grants such as CENTER Grant (USA, 2019), Direct Look (Russia, 2019), Lucie Photo Book Prize (USA, 2019), been nominated to Prix HSBC pour la Photographie (France, 2019) and chosen as one of FOAM Talent (Netherlands, 2021) His works been published world wide including Washington Post, Lenscratch, Takiedela, Phmuseum, Artdoc.photo, Internazionale, FOAM. https://igortereshkov.com/ CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS du 17 March to 1 May 2022

IOANA CÎRLIG POST-INDUSTRIAL STORIES ROUMANIA

In 2012 I moved from Bucharest to a small gold mining town, to try and understand the changes in the landscape, the architecture and in the way people live their lives in this time of change. Mono-industrial areas are the most vulnerable, as they have been depending, for as long as the community can remember, on the mine as a main source of income. Everyone worked there, cultural and sports activities were organised by the industrial center. Romania was heavily industrialised during its 40+ years under communism. People were moved from all over the country to these areas to work in the mines and factories. Villages turned to towns, mountains turned to quarries. During the transition to a market economy, these mono-industrial areas have been left adrift, without a long-term plan of reconversion. Now the wave is reversed: people are forced to move, looking for a way to make a living, the towns are shrinking, the industrial centers are being sold for parts. Post-Industrial Stories is a long-term photography project documenting this time of change and the effects of deindustrialisation on Romania’s small mining towns. © Ioana Cirlig The project is aimed at capturing the atmosphere and the daily life from inside the community. Ioana Cîrlig

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

I am a Romanian freelance documentary photographer. I studied Cinematography and worked for a few years as a photojournalist in Bucharest before dedicating myself full- time to long- term independent personal projects. After working for three years on the project and living in two Romanian mining towns, in 2015, together with Marin Raica, I co-authored the Post-Industrial Stories photobook. In 2016 I co-founded The Romanian Center for Documentary Photography. I am also working with a Romanian culture magazine, Scena9, as a photo editor. I am currently working on a project about the botanical world, endangered, rare plants and the researchers who study them. www.ioanacirlig.ro/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES EXHIBITIONS du 17 March to 1 May 2022

PANOS KEFALOS SAINTS GREECE

‘Why ‘saints’? The correlation between the title of my book and its subject matter is not an obvious one. I chose the word ‘Saints’ because, to me, it is the signifier of a spiritual search. What I was looking for with my work was a missing spiritual connection: something linking me with the people portrayed in these photos, or linking them with my city, or me with the lingering shadow of my past. In the fall of 2012, my involvement in an unrelated work brought me to Victoria Square, in downtown Athens. In these early stages my goal was to capture the everyday life of the children – most of them refugees from Afghanistan – that worked and played on the square. It quickly became about much more than that. It became about childhood – that broken mirror image of adult life – and the forces tearing it apart: fragility and unconstrained freedom, the brutal violence of war and the instinctive expression of child’s play. The Saint is he who opens to the sinner the way to atonement and transcendence. The bond I formed with three of the children and their families released a tension that took away all my innermost fears. They taught me that the truest connection would come by looking at their world as a photographer ultimately should: through my own eyes. By delving into intimate feelings and personal truths, the memories and primeval impulses that struggled inside me to reach the surface were suddenly free to pour forth. These photos don’t tell any stories. They are a free association of images, reflections of the way I felt about our encounter. By 2015 all the people I knew had left Greece. I documented the refugee crisis that broke out in August of that year: surrounded by TV Channels and photojournalists from all over the world, I took my last pictures. It was a time for © Panos Kefalos international headlines – personal journeys and friendships seemed now, in the face of pressing news cycles, like concerns of the past. A few days later I decided the time had come to commit this experience into the book I had been planning and I finally left for Italy to edit it. Panos Kefalos

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Panos Kefalos is a photographer whose work has appeared in magazines, newspapers, books and national & international exhibitions. He is best known for his book "Saints" that was published in July 2016 by Fabrica, Italy. With his work "Saints" he's been the recipient of many grants and awards and he has figured on numerous shortlists and finalist picks, including: Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2014 | Jurors' picks for the LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2016 | Gomma Grant 2016 Best Black & White Picture award | 15th Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant in 2017, Tokyo, Japan | finalist for the second annual Magnum Photography Awards | winner of the PHmuseum Grant / New Generation Prize 2018. He works on his in personal long term projects in the central district of Athens, Greece, where he lives. www.panoskefalos.com/

CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE - IMAGESINGULIÈRES The organisation of the festival is subject to the evolution of the sanitary measures. All the visits and events will take place according to health measures instructions applicable and are subject to cancellation, modification or postponement in accordance with government restrictions.

IMAGESINGULIÈRES - CENTRE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE DOCUMENTAIRE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC/FREE ENTRY (within the limits of the required gauges) From july to mid-september : From Tuesday to Saturday from 10h to 19h / On Sunday from 14h to 19h From mid-september 2021 to april 2022 : From Tuesday to Sunday from 14h to 18h 15-17 rue Lacan 34200 Sète / +33 4 67 18 27 54 / [email protected] www.imagesingulieres.com

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