PRESS KIT

15th edition QUESTION TIME FOR EARTH

2 JUNE TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2018 INTRO

A HYMN TO THE EARTH

THE POETRY OF NATURE

THE LAND OF MEN

AN EXPLOITED PLANET

PLUS...

Image Sans Frontière EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHY LE MORBIHAN SCHOOL PHOTO FESTIVAL 4 INTRODUCTION

Jacques Rocher Festival founder & Mayor of La Gacilly

This year marks La Gacilly Photo Festival’s 15W birthday. Over this time, it has won a significant place in the world of photography, both in France and internationally. Its founding principle is as relevant as ever: to express, through a camera lens, the major environmental and social issues which arise

Over 15 years, La Gacilly has welcomed 3.3 million people, proving – if proof were needed – that culture attracts visitors to rural regions.

• It goes without saying that we owe this success to the talents of more than 300 international photographers whom we have exhibited over a decade and a half.

• We also owe a debt of gratitude to our public sector partners the French Ministry of Culture, Brittany Regional Council, Le Morbihan Departmental Council, the Brocéliande Western Local Authorities Partnership, and La Gacilly Local Authority.

• We are also grateful to private sector partners who have offered us financial and technical support.

• Finally, we owe no less of our success to the team working at the Festival and at La Gacilly Local Authority.

Our 15th Festival also marks a step forward in our international deve- lopment as we inaugurate our first ever La Gacilly-Baden Photo Fes- tival in the town of Baden, Austria. We are proud to be proving that culture helps to foster relationships and kinship between different communities. 5 INTRODUCTION

Auguste Coudray Président du Festival

A SINGULAR VISION OF OUR

Whether it comes in the form of constructions, culture or nature, our heritage is only as important as the value we place on it and the uses we make of it. It is not just about exhibiting significant objects and visiting high-quality places, but the meaning and symbolism these objects and places embody. In our modern world, experts are no longer the only ones to decide what heritage is – society itself also makes this judge- ment. Heritage now encompasses alternative places and events that are meaningful to everybody, such as ex-industrial areas, redesigned urban spaces, festivals and districts with a rich seam of street art.

La Gacilly Photo Festival draws its strength from its relationship with the public. It perfectly illustrates how our definition of heritage has broadened, leading to greater recognition for new heritage areas. While the Festival has become a renowned tourist destination, nationally and internationally, for all kinds of different people visiting Brittany, it remains an event that those of us living in Western France feel compelled to revisit year after year. For 15 years, La Gacilly Photo Festival has invited local residents and tourists to enjoy a truly enriching experience with family or friends, in a setting imbued with a sense of celebration, authenticity and meaning. Last year, more than 320,000 people of all ages visited the event.

Because it tackles key social issues through art and aesthetics, La Gacilly Photo Festival is resolutely in step with our times. This year, it is boldly bringing about “Question Time for Earth” as part of a thorough interrogation of the world we live in. We invite visitors to use their mind and their senses to explore our Earth, to listen to it whisper its endlessly layered song and to feel its pulsing vibration. Let’s dare to look further, to gaze at both the infinitely huge and the infinitesimally small, crossing time and space as we do so. Let’s work to uncover the reality that links countless interactions which occur while our shared human existence endlessly renews and extends itself, interactions which shape and change our daily lives and light our path

Welcome to La Gacilly. I hope that you enjoy your time at our Festival. 6 INTRODUCTION

CYRIL DROUHET Exhibition Curator FLORENCE DROUHET Festival Artistic Director

15 YEARS HAVE PASSED… BUT THE NEED TO ACT HAS NOT

“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Humankind has long believed that the Earth we live on is eternal and its resources unending. We explored it, mined it, transformed it and, finally, exhausted it.

15 years ago, La Gacilly Photo Festival was created to be a space where images gave us an insight into our planet’s extremely fragile beauty – a beauty which has been perverted by frenetic industrialisation, uprooted by urbanisation and impoverished through over-work of the earth. Either in a spirit of revolt or with a gentler approach, the photographers have set out to magnify, document, cap- ture or simply display the vital connection between humankind and nature. The greatest names in contemporary photography have supported us throughout the years. They are, in their own way, custodians and protectors of our Earth. Without their shots, their drive to let others see what they see, their sensibilities and their implacable vision of the society emerging around us, we would not be able to stand in wonder before wild animals, the last unviolated ancient forests or the miracle of life itself. Neither would we know of the tragedies unfolding, of inhuman cities which crush in ever more inhabitants, of the earthworks which might destroy an entire ecosystem or of the pollution which is endangering our shared heritage.

Since the Festival first started in 2004, it has exhibited more than 300 artists and given visitors the chance to see more than 7000 photographs, opening up thousands of windows onto our world. In our open-air galleries and passageways and our gardens designed so that visitors can wander in amongst the art, we have aimed to share with an ever-growing audience of all ages all the brutality of our times – but also images of hope or, quite simply, beauty. We can do this because the renowned photojournalists and artists we present each year all share our wild passion for our Earth as they travel the world looking for shots that reveal an undeniable truth. Many of them have even become friends of the festival, such as Brent Stirton, Pascal Maitre, Michael Nichols, Pierre de Vallom- 7 INTRODUCTION

breuse, Sophie Zénon, and Nick Brandt. We extend our sincerest thanks to them for sharing their talent so loyally with us.

Our hope for the 15th anniversary Festival was that it would celebrate our rein- vigorated Earth, with humankind having finally devoted all its attention to it out of concern for its future. Alas, as time has ticked on ever faster, the first warning signs have flared up and nation states have endlessly gathered to find solutions for our ailing planet, we are getting inexorably closer to the brink and at an increasing pace, despite us all being aware of how urgent action is if we are to avoid our ruination. Throughout our history, we have looked at nature without really seeing it. We have never sought to love it, but to tame it.

• Is there still time to save our burning home?

In 1992, 1700 researchers called on us to act against environmental destruc- tion. They feared that “humanity was pushing Earth’s ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life”. Yet things have only worsened, and faced with the gravity of the situation, more than 15,000 scientists put their name to an unprecedented warning 25 years later in November 2017. In it, they stated that, over a quarter of a century, forests have inexorably disappeared, with 1.2 billion km2 of space having been swallowed up, largely by agriculture; numbers of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish have fallen by a third; and the use of greenhouse gases has soared – and global temperatures with it. Over the same period, areas of the ocean covered by “dead zones”, where marine life has been smothered by farming waste carried in by rivers and where oxygen has all but disappeared, have expanded by 75%. This damage is being done in lockstep with increases in population growth. Since the first call to action was issued, the number of people on the planet has increased by a third.

As science sees it, our only hope of salvation is if we undergo both a collective and personal change of mind-set. If we do not, we will run out of time. To reverse the dynamics currently underway, scientists have urgently recommended that we halt population growth by making family planning more widely available; create more nature reserves; strengthen laws against poaching; and offer wide-scale support for renewable energies and other green technology.

Take the time to observe, contemplate and respect the natural world which gives us our life force. Refuse to turn away from reality by taking responsibility for the irreversible footprint we leave behind. Declare any sign of progress a source of hope. These are the objectives

La Gacilly Photo Festival has always strived for. For the 2018 Festival which marks our 15th birthday, we wanted to gather together the finest examples of 8 INTRODUCTION

photographic style, documentarian, photo-journalistic or artistic, so long as they demonstrated an awareness of our world while also expressing its enchanting qualities or beauty.

• Wonderment?

Astronaut Thomas Pesquet inspired millions of French people during his voyage aboard the European Space Station. There, he revealed himself to be an incom- parable photographer and defender of the environment. He speaks eloquently of his cause, telling us “Earth is a spaceship with a crew of 7 billion people, all of whom are seeking to survive. My photos are now my way of sharing the heightened awareness I have of this with you.” We are exhibiting his images of space, which demonstrate that “our planet is magnificent yet fragile”. Spike Walker’s images come to him in a rather unusual way. This British scientist allows us to delve into the “micro-cosmos” of living organisms, unveiling a form of life we do not usually get to see. Yet the world’s beauty is just as in evidence in Philippe Bourseiller’s extraordinary work focussing on ice and water; in Jean Gaumy’s abstract images of rocks; in Olaf Otto Becker’s images of ancient forests; in Matthieu Ricard’s focus on the Himalayan people’s harmony with nature; in great colour photographer William Albert Allard’s shots of the America of wide open spaces which we all love; and in the pictures of our world taken by amateur photographers belonging to Image sans Frontière, the best of which we will display. We are also celebrating the animal kingdom which is seeing its natural balance equally threatened, in the wild animals represented by American Michael Nichols, the captivating creatures of Karen Knorr and troubling images by German Jan C. Schlegel.

• Commitment?

La Gacilly Photo Festival is not content to simply exhibit great photographers – we want to actively support environmental causes. Nations have a role to play, and so does business. Every year, 13 million hectares of forest – an area four times the size of Belgium – disappear all around the world. The Fondation Yves Rocher has committed to planting 100 million trees by 2020, and it is financing photography projects to raise public awareness of the sheer scale of deforesta- tion. This year, we will exclusively unveil pictures taken with the Fondation Yves Rocher’s support by Brent Stirton in Ethiopia, Emanuele Scorcelletti in India and Phil Moore in France. Yet our drive to create photos goes even deeper than this. French-Spanish photographer Catalina Martin-Chico has spent a two-month residence in our village focussing on youth in La Gacilly. Edouard Elias, on the other hand, has travelled Le Morbihan to capture images of the local people who make our region so diverse, with support from the Departmental Council. We are also living out our ambition to showcase future talent by continuing a 9 INTRODUCTION

partnership with Fisheye magazine which lets us uncover emerging artists, and by again running the Le Morbihan School Photo Festival.

Our commitment also continues to emerge through the messages we seek to pass on to future generations via the photographers and their finely intelligent work. Chris Jordan makes photographic frescos which are grand in scale yet which defy our sense of perception, displaying the damage wrought by over-consump- tion. Artist Stéphane Couturier explores the overpopulated urban areas we have built. Patrick Tourneboeuf makes our head spin with images of cities of the future built in double-quick time in India or China. Fausto Podavini exposes how local Ethiopian life has been ravaged by policies encouraging major development. Frédéric Delangle gives us a compassionate glimpse of the teeming human life on the Indian sub-continent. And Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison share their dreamlike, surrealist vision of a shattered Earth.

• Solutions?

Solutions exist, and they require us to respect local people and the harmony between humans and their natural environment. They also entail the development of innovative technology that generates less pollution. Miquel Dewever-Plana has set his focus on the tragedy lived out by Amerindians in French Guiana to reveal portraits of a people in search of an identity. The same issue always lies at the heart of Brazilian photographer Claudia Andujar’s work. She has helped to protect indigenous peoples by sharing in the daily existence of the Amazonian Yanomanis for several decades. We will also see intensely delicate and poetic photos by Russian Emil Gataullin for the first time ever in France. He examines rural life in his home country, and the results bear no relation to our apocalyptic vision of an industrial, desolate Russia.

Slovenian Matjaz Krivic reveals the reality behind lithium, an alkaline metal we all already have in our smartphones which will revolutionise our future by providing the batteries for our electric cars.

La Gacilly Photo Festival is able to run for its 15th year thanks to its wide-reaching appeal, the message it puts across and the quality of the photos it exhibits. Our values, high standards and love for photography will continue to drive our work for as long as the public wishes to engage with it. We are proud to announce that our concept for exposing works themed around environmental issues on a large scale in the open air has stirred envy internationally and that on 8th June, the small town of Baden, Austria, will open up its gardens, streets and parks for the first ever La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival. Our latest adventure has begun! HYMN TO THE EARTH 11 HYMN TO THE EARTH / © ESA/NASA Pesquet © Thomas

Thomas Pesquet • France Earth(s)

This Frenchman has inspired millions with the adventures he has posted on social networks. 40-year-old Thomas Pesquet is an astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA). Between November 2016 and June 2017, he spent 196 days on board the International Space Station conducting experiments, main- tenance operations and spacewalks. As well as leading a scien- tific mission, he has shown the public that he is an outstanding photographer and an artist with rare sensibility. From space, our planet offers up a spectacular vision of plants and rocks, arid plains and vast oceans, wild nature and tamed cities. Thomas captured Earth, our fragile and last great shared resource, over six months. The viewer is left spellbound by the constant yet threatened beauty of our world, from swathes of land carved up for farming to islands rising out of azure seas and mega-cities glittering in the night. An exhibition created in partnership with a competition by www.esa.int 12 HYMN TO THE EARTH © Spike Walker

SPIKE WALKER • United Kingdom Larger Than Life

What happens when the infinitely tiny meets the infinitely huge? Spike Walker’s work uses dizzying, perspective-altering angles to explore the resulting confusion and shake our perception of the world around us. As a retired professor and enthusiastic pho- tographer, Spike Walker was recognised in 2010 and 2016 by the British Royal Photographic Society for his outstanding contribu- tion to photography and its application in the service of medi- cine. “I got my first microscope when I was 12,” he explains. “It wasn’t long before I wanted to make this complex scientific wor- ld that fascinated me perceptible.” Through these awe-inspiring images of microscopic living organisms, he unveils a level of life we do not ordinarily get to see. These large-format pictures bear a strange resemblance to Thomas Pesquet’s satellite images of our planet. 13 HYMN TO THE EARTH © Philippe Bourseiller

Philippe Bourseiller • France Ice

From the Arctic to Peru and the Swiss mountains to equatorial Puncak Jaya in Indonesia, glaciers are disappearing at an alar- ming speed. Scientists have estimated that most of the Hima- layas’ ice will have gone by 2035. In the Northern Hemisphere, snow is melting in springtime nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago, while frost comes ten days later in autumn. During al- most 30 years of travels and expeditions, French photographer Philippe Bourseiller has crossed the planet’s great stretches of ice as they undergo tremendous change. He has brought back immensely beautiful images which capture a gorgeous world threatened by global warming. This remarkable work focuses on an increasingly rare substance which is nonetheless essen- tial to our planet’s survival. 14 HYMN TO THE EARTH / Magnum Photos © Jean Gaumy

Jean Gaumy • France After Nature

Icon of the prestigious Magnum agency, two-time winner of the Nadar Prize (in 2001 and 2010) and member of the Institut de France, Jean Gaumy has been documenting our changing world for more than 40 years. As his photography has developed, it has investigated (and continues to investigate) rarely-seen spaces; the presence and influence of humans in inhospitable lands; and ancestral landscapes, as well as recognising the planet’s ancient and new limits. From this collection, emerge images which contemplate our world of minerals, rocks and water. Yet the subtext immortalised in Jean Gaumy’s photos is the danger our world is in. “Bearing witness to this danger is perhaps more important than bearing witness to war,” in his view. “Ultimately, the very existence of human life on this planet is at stake.” 15 HYMN TO THE EARTH © Olaf Otto Becker

Olaf Otto Becker • Germany Reading the Landscape

Every time a tree is felled in the Brazilian Amazon, another tree – artificial this time – is constructed in a neighbourhood of Sin- gapore or Kuala Lumpur. Although forests are being decimated by humankind every day around the world, nature and organic produce are being brandished like never before as key marke- ting tactics by major industrial groups. German photographer Olaf Otto Becker started his Reading the Landscape series to underline this paradox. Its three chapters illustrate nature’s three states: untouched, destroyed and artificial. Yet another type of nature is also unmasked through this photographic tryp- tic: humans’ natural ineptitude when it comes to recreating what they themselves have consumed. 16 HYMN TO THE EARTH © Matthieu Ricard

Matthieu Ricard • France Half a Century in the Himalayas

Matthieu Ricard is a scientist by training, an interpreter for the Dalai Lama and undoubtedly France’s most famous Buddhist monk. In 1967 he set up home in India and ever since he has constantly photographed the majestic summits of the Hima- layas, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leaders and the wild natural sights of the Kingdom of Bhutan. He has been granted privile- ged access to the secret world of the monasteries, nomadic communities, sacred sites and the most difficult-to-reach places in world’s grandest mountain range. This exhibition traces a great photographer’s personal journey through a life dedicated to wisdom, spirituality and Tibet’s people and culture. Henri Car- tier-Bresson has rightly said of him that “Matthieu’s spiritual life and his camera form a single whole. It is from them that these fleeting yet eternal images spring”. 17 HYMN TO THE EARTH © William Albert Allard © William

William Albert Allard • USA A VOYAGE TO THE ROOTS OF AMERICA

Master colour photographer and Minneapolis native Bill Al- lard loves taking his time, and he always regards his subjects tenderly. He has been a part of photojournalism’s history for more than 50 years. In Portraits of America, he went in search of a nation: the America we all love, that of wide open spaces, plain-living people and descendants of the pioneers of the West. During his travels, he uncovered a living country dappled in light and shade and a dusty landscape that is as vast as it is beauti- ful. The photographer manages to capture the essence of very particular scenes and atmospheres through their inhabitants, atmospheres which have a near-filmic quality. For nearly a cen- tury, such images have haunted and fascinated our collective unconscious. THE POETRY OF NATURE 19 THE POETRY OF NATURE © Shana & Robert ParkeHarrison

Shana & Robert ParkeHarrison • USA An Unreal World

Strange images tinted with the colours of the past seem to emerge straight out of a dream. In this odd world, characters try to repair a fragment of a destroyed Earth or cling onto the only tree left standing in a deforested landscape. He was born in Missouri in 1968, she in Oklahoma in 1964. Art photographers and environmental activists Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison have worked together for 20 years. They adopt a Surrealist style to create works which “respond to the ever less promising link between humankind, technology and nature ”. According to the couple, technology and science have failed to solve our pro- blems. Their poetic photography allows us to explore the com- plicated relationship individuals have made with their planet. 20 THE POETRY OF NATURE © Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr • USA New Fables

American photographer Karen Knorr is taking us through the looking glass. She is a landmark figure in contemporary photo- graphy and belongs to a generation of artists who have ques- tioned the nature of the craft by no longer seeing it as a pure expression of reality but as the creation of fabricated images. By capturing foxes or wild boar, stags or herons who have ventured into the sumptuous residences of pre-Revolutionary France or sublime Indian palaces, the artist composes unlikely scenarios in the face of which the amused yet unsettled viewer is reduced to the status of incredulous witness. She does this by tacitly but deliberately positioning each image as an act of trickery and a fabricated, even fictitious, scene. She loads her work with refe- rences to mythology, history and literature, with allegory serving as much to parody the art of the past as to critique our sense of judgement and knowledge. 21 THE POETRY OF NATURE © Jan C. Schlegel

Jan C. Schlegel • GERmany Of Monster & Dragon

Jan C. Schlegel loves taking photos, but he also loves the tech- nicality of making an image. His work stands out for its par- ticular tints, a signature of his style. Having completed series about tribes which are disappearing in the tumult of modern day life, this German photographer is returning to La Gacilly to surprise us yet again. In Of Monster & Dragon, he explores the limits of calotypes on silver iodide-coated paper. This format was invented in the 19th century by scientist and photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot. Here, he takes a fresh look at it with a series of insects and butterflies. In images which resemble etchings, strange contours seem to be chiselled into white backgrounds. 22 THE POETRY OF NATURE © Michael Nichols © Michael

Michael Nichols • usa Wild

Some call him photography’s wild child, others the Indiana Jones of photojournalism. Before bringing his incredible career to a close in 2017, Nick Nichols was one of the top names to re- gularly illustrate the pages of the prestigious National Geogra- phic magazine. His peers unanimously agree that his body of work has radically altered how photographers approach wildlife photography. By focussing on three major chapters in his career – lions, tigers and gorillas and chimpanzees – this exhibition modestly aims to create a limited retrospective dedicated to one of La Gacilly’s oldest friends. This is an exhibition in which nature appears unvarnished and in the raw, dangerous and es- sentially untameable. 23 THE POETRY OF NATURE © Emil Gataullin

Emil Gataullin • rUSSIA Russia Sweet and Slow

This Russian photographer has never before had a major ex- hibition in France, yet his black and white works are redolent of two great masters he expressly admires, Cartier-Bresson and Koudelka. Emil Gataullin grew up in a small village outside Moscow. His poetic series reveal a rural Russia which time has forgotten and which bears no comparison to Western clichés about the country’s frenetic industrialisation. His images are not nostalgic, but neither do they idealise. They simply present snapshots of life which declare his love for Russia and a wan- dering, romantic journey through an unknown land where time moves more slowly. He skilfully invests routine moments with an enchanting, magical quality. Emil is 44 and lives with his wife and daughter in a small, Khrushchev-era village on the outskirts of Moscow which reminds him of childhood holidays spent deep in the countryside. THE LAND OF MEN 25 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON AMAZONIA © Claudia Andujar

Claudia Andujar • bRAZil Amazonian Lament

Born in 1931 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland to a Jewish Hungarian father who died in a concentration camp along with much of her family, Claudia Andujar has lived through the ravages of war. She left the old world of Europe for New York, before moving again to Brazil and starting out in photography. In 1971, she met the Yanomani people for the first time while on a reporting as- signment commissioned by Realidade magazine. This was to be a life-changing encounter. As a photographer with a great sense of humanity, Claudia would go on to spend more than 30 years of her life supporting this indigenous community, whose land and very existence are under threat. Her exceptionally close ac- cess to her subjects has allowed her to immortalise shamanic rituals, as well as the dense, dark atmosphere of a mysterious forest which seems to question our perception of reality. Clau- dia Andujar’s photos go well beyond simple ethnographic re- portage, standing as works of art in their own right. 26 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON AMAZONIA © Miquel Dewever-Plana

Miquel Dewever-Plana • France From One Bank to the Next

“What makes me “me”? Is it my facial features or the clothes I wear? Is it the way I hold myself or the language my parents speak? Is it the way I see myself, or how others see me?” 7,000 km away from the city in the uninhabited wilds of French Guia- na, a catastrophe is silently unfolding which brings shame on this modern country. In villages tucked deep in the Amazonian jungle, Amerindians – most of them teenagers – are killing themselves. French-Catalan photographer Miquel Dewever-Pla- na has devoted his work to exploring questions around identity and he wanted to understand why this was happening. He inte- grated into the Wyanas’, Wayapis’ and Tekos’ daily lives, captu- ring their portraits and stories in a way that respects their cus- toms while expressing the trauma inflicted by colonisation and a certain fascination with the West. 27 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON ETHIOPIA © Brent Stirton / Verbatim

Brent Stirton • South AFRICA The Renaissance of the Ethiopian Forest

As a much-respected photojournalist, an activist working to pro- tect African wildlife and a long-time friend of La Gacilly, Brent Stirton has travelled to northern Ethiopia, near the Eritrean bor- der. In the heart of valleys carved between giant ambas, the South African photographer has documented the fight led by Green Ethiopia, with support from the Yves Rocher Foundation. The organisation is reforesting this rural region at a moment in time when the whole country is engaged in a policy of mo- dernisation financed by huge Chinese industrial groups. Here, the profoundly environmental act of planting a tree also has a social and economic impact. Little by little, this arid land is being planted up again and as the forest grows so does a whole hu- man and natural ecosystem. Supported by the Fondation Yves Rocher 28 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON ETHIOPIA © Fausto Podavini

Fausto Podavini • ITALy The End of a World

Of all the African continent’s economies, Ethiopia’s is among those moving at breakneck speed. This development has been turbocharged by European and Chinese investments, which have sometimes come at the cost of major geographical and cultural upheaval. The Italian photographer Fausto Podavini wanted to bear witness to these changes in the legendary Omo Valley in the south of the country, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980. Among these projects is a gigantic dam whose aim is to supply future cotton farms and which is altering all the ancestral habits lived out by the ethnic groups who populated lands hidden deep in the forest. This piece of work made its de- but in 2011 and won the 2017 Yves Rocher Foundation Photogra- phy Prize, as well as reaching the final of the World Press Photo 2018 competition’s Long-Term Projects category. It exclusively appears in its entirety at La Gacilly Photo Festival. 29 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON INDIA © Emanuele Scorcelletti

Emanuele Scorcelletti • ITALy The Spirit of the Tree

“Plant a tree and you sow hope.” To find out if this old saying was true, Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru set himself the extraordi- nary goal of planting 100 million trees by the year 2020 in Tamil Nadu, one of the most arid regions in the country. It is hard to pic- ture this land devastated by deforestation and global warming as it once was, a living, lush green land dotted with ancient forests. In autumn 2017, Emanuele Scorcelletti – a talented portraitist but a reporter in his bones – went to meet the people undertaking the task of making the desert green again and reviving the far- ming industry. He integrated into local life, photographed the vo- lunteers growing thousands of plants in their nurseries, observed the schoolchildren who have become ambassadors for a green economy, and shared in a small farming world where polyculture is now everywhere and trees are king. He works in the name of ancestral spiritual tradition to counter catastrophising thinking. Supported by the Yves Rocher Foundation 30 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON INDIA © Frédéric Delangle

Frédéric Delangle • FRANCE Indian winter

In Indian Winter, Frédéric Delangle presents three series, inclu- ding Harmonious Chaos. With this turn of phrase, Frédéric De- langle has grasped the singular DNA of a fascinating country that is as intriguing as it is seductive. This French photographer has a keen interest in architecture and landscapes, and here he has opted to focus on the crossroads and tiny shops dotted along Delhi’s roads. There are nearly 15 million of these in a country of 1.3 billion people - and they feed 17% of the world’s population. These photographic variations on a theme draw a portrait of a colourful, urban India that is ceaselessly, frenetically on the move. 31 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE

PHOTO REPORT IN PROGRESS

Phil Moore • United Kingdom Guardians of the Land

In the early 1960s, there were more than 4 million French farmers. Now, they number just under 900,000. Throughout France, num- bers of farms are plummeting, with half of them having ceased to exist over a 20-year period. As well as engendering an econo- mic and nutritional crisis, the disappearance of France’s country dwellers is disfiguring our landscapes and our earthly heritage, because when we work the soil, we are by definition maintai- ning it. For its third commission, the Yves Rocher Foundation has asked British photojournalist Phil Moore to travel around three great French regions – Auverge, Brittany and the Loire –to record the work of people who have made the choice to plant hedgerows in their local area. Among other advantages, these hedgerows help to revive areas of woodland and meadow, to retain water and to revitalise the land. Supported by the Yves Rocher Foundation 32 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE

PHOTO REPORT IN PROGRESS

Edouard Elias • FRANCE Habitats and Inhabitants

Edouard Elias is one of French photojournalism’s burgeoning talents. He has come to the fore in particular thanks to his ex- traordinary work on oil wells in Iraq and the French Foreign Le- gion in the Central African Republic. This year, the Morbihan Regional Council has commissioned him with the theme of Ha- bitats and Inhabitants. Taking in everything from a fisherman’s cottage perching beside the gulf to the towns of Vannes or Lo- rient, via Brittany’s most remote villages and hamlets, his socio- logical approach provides a perspective on the Brittany’s homes and, consequently, the diversity of the people who inhabit them. Edouard Elias has a passion for photography of all types and handles digital cameras as well as he does traditional film. For this commission, he has chosen to use wide-angle lenses and medium format film. Supported by The Morbihan Regional Council 33 THE LAND OF MEN - SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE © Catalina© Martin-Chico Catalina Martin-Chico • France Being 15 in La Gacilly

During her two-month residence at La Gacilly Photo Festival, the French-Catalan photojournalist Catalina Martin Chico has fo- cussed on her own childhood in Galicia and, more particularly, on the question of what it means to be 15 in a village today. In France, the government has just decreed that at 15, children are legally entitled to use their own data online to whatever end they choose. At the same time, Catalina has been looking at the particular issues faced by teens that live in rural areas such as La Gacilly, La Chapelle-Gaceline or Glénac. At this age, they are just emerging from childhood and are still attached to the safety of the family unit, yet they are beginning to open themselves up to the outside world, to forge significant friendships and to ex- plore life’s joys. But more than that, they are asking themselves questions: Should I stay? Should I go? Where, and what will I do there? This is a crucial and, in many cases, complicated period in a young person’s life when they have to make choices that will determine their future – and this often happens all too early. By sharing in their daily lives, the photographer has penetrated to the heart of a particular moment in life, using all the gentleness that characterises her work. AN EXPLOITED PLANET 35 AN EXPLOITED PLANET © Stéphane Couturier

Stéphane Couturier • FRance “Climat de France”

From Chandigarh (India) to Brasilia, Havana, Barcelona and so many other places, the world’s greatest metropolises are Sté- phane Couturier's subject of choice. This art photographer has turned his attention to Algier’s Climat de France area. It was built in 1957 by architect Fernand Pouillon in monumental and singular style, in a bid to pacify a country festering with the ef- fects of the Algerian war, but it has become an overpopulated ghetto. Designed in cut stone to house 30,000 people, it bulges with 60,000. To provide an illustration of this strange community of 5,000 apartments which stretches over an area of 233 m by 38 m, La Gacilly Photo Festival is presenting Stéphane Coutu- rier’s exhibition as a single piece that rings Le Garage like an immense tracking shot. This choice emphasises both the Cité Climat de France’s sheer size and the talent and technique em- ployed by Stéphane to create an image on this scale over a pe- riod of several years. 36 AN EXPLOITED PLANET Tendance Floue Tendance / Tourneboeuf © Patrick

Patrick Tourneboeuf • FRANCE Next City

Picture two metropolises 4,000 km apart: Beijing and New Delhi. They are the capitals of the world’s two most populous nations, respectively China and India. Both are located within different geographic, social, cultural and political contexts. And yet… The construction sites on the outskirts of both cities look alike, their immense concrete jungles bearing the same structure, conven- tions and viewpoints. In our globalised era, could there be a worldwide mode of thinking around mass utopian urbanisation that responds to the universal issue of housing? Member of the Tendance Floue collective, Patrick Tourneboeuf has posed this question in photos shot using a view camera. It is the continua- tion of work he has engaged in for years and which interrogates locations’ identities with a concision that demands radical fra- ming choices and confidently constructed perspectives. 37 AN EXPLOITED PLANET © Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan • usa Intolerable Beauty

The greatest danger our planet faces is overconsumption. The modern tendencies we have adopted since the second half of the 20th century are the root of our world and environment’s ills and they have created true monsters. From clothes to food and electronics, everything is mass-produced and nothing is repaired or saved: it is all simply thrown away. American pho- tographer Chris Jordan started his series Intolerable Beauty to bear witness to our abuse of our world. By setting accumulation of things and material against his own photographic style, the artist creates an almost hypnotic series of shots which are as fascinating as they are perturbing. 38 AN EXPLOITED PLANET © Matjaz Krivic

Matjaz Krivic • Slovenia Lithium Road

Coal, petroleum and nuclear energy have given us three indus- trial revolutions. Lithium will almost certainly give us the next. This alkali metal and third element on the periodic table is the cornerstone of the electric car revolution predicted by Elon Musk and adopted by China where, by 2025, all vehicles rolling off production lines will be electric. Produced in great mass at $9,000 a tonne, lithium is already essential to almost all the bat- teries in our electronic devices, smartphones and tablets. From the Bolivian salt mines of Salar de Uyuni to Chinese factories, Slovenian photojournalist Matjaz Kriviz has travelled the lithium road from extraction to refinement and industrial application. This entirely unique collection centred on a new “white gold” can be seen exclusively at La Gacilly Photo Festival. Plus... Image Sans Frontière • EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHY LE MORBIHAN SCHOOL PHOTO FESTIVAL 40 MAIS AUSSI...

Image Sans Frontière The Earth’s Beauties

IMAGE SANS FRONTIÈRE is an international photographers’ association which has been a La Gacilly partner since the festi- val’s earliest days. As every year, the collective has called on its members, this time to create images that illustrate our theme of Earth’s fragility. Explore the diversity of its peoples and the dazzling grandeur of its landscapes through 20 selected photos from a collective that goes beyond borders to unite photogra- phy lovers around the world..

Emerging Photography

For the third year running, La Gacilly Photo Festival will open its doors to new photographers. Last year, we received more than 300 portfolios and exhibited talents as diverse as Manon Lanjouère, Teo Becher and Zhen Shi. A new judging panel will meet in April to continue this fantastic initiative in partnership with Fisheye Magazine. The photographers who are selected for their work and commitment to sustainable development will be proudly displayed at La Gacilly in June.

Le Morbihan School Photo Festival

The Festival’s School scheme has been developed over a 6-year period in partnership with the Le Morbihan Departmental Coun- cil, and it offers 16 secondary schools and more than 350 stu- dents the chance to follow a full-year photography curriculum with a resident professional photographer. The work is done in a studio and is based on issues linked to La Gacilly Photo Fes- tival’s theme, eventually forming its own remarkable show in the Festival’s main exhibition space. For the 2018 Festival dedi- cated to the Earth, the students have taken Imprint(s) as their theme. Their title refers to ecology (“environmental footprint”), identity (our “fingerprint” or identity, the imprint made on the festival by the local area and the local area by the festival), but also form and style, in that photography is itself essential a way of imprinting light on paper. It is an unmissable event within our Festival. 41

NEW FOR 2018 LA GACILLY– BADEN PHOTO

Following on from the Festival’s 2017 expansion into the newly merged areas of Glénac and La Chapelle-Gaceline, this year La Gacilly Photo Festival is stretching out into Europe. While the 15th La Gacilly Photo Festival itself will launch on the weekend of 1st June, the weekend after will see the first ever La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival 30km south of Vienna in Baden. The event will take over the whole programme from the 2017 Festival, which was themed around the relationship between mankind and wildlife and had Africa as its guest continent. This strong partnership will reaffirm the festival’s ethical and humanist values as part of a vision of humankind and nature shared by both the French team and its Austrian counterparts.

Imperial spa town Baden is located in a beautifully preserved natu- ral setting and, like La Gacilly, it is developing a sustainable vision for its development and shared love of art. It is not hard to see why Beethoven visited it over a period of several years, even composing what is now the European Anthem – his 9th Symphony – in the town. The Festival is proving a wonderful way for us all to reaffirm our hope to forge a shared destiny. CONTACT

La Gacilly, Morbihan - Brittany By car: 1 hour from Rennes, Vannes and Nantes By train: 2 hours from Paris (Redon train station)

TRAVEL WITHOUT POLLUTING In partnership with TER Bretagne, we can provide you with a combined train and shuttle ticket to take you straight to the festival for the cheapest of prices. For terms and conditions, information and timetables, go to www.festivalphoto-lagacilly.com From 1st June

Contacts La Gacilly Photo Festival Anne-Dominique Chouteau Rue des Graveurs - BP 11 - 56204 La Gacilly, France Tél. : + 33 2 99 08 68 00 [email protected] www.festivalphoto-lagacilly.com From 1st June (site currently under refurbishment)

@lagacillyphoto

PRESS CONTACT 2e Bureau Sylvie Grumbach, Martial Hobeniche, Daniela Jacquet Tel : + 33 1 42 33 93 18 [email protected] www.2e-bureau.com

GRAPHIC DESIGN Atelier Michel Bouvet