FROM OCTOBER 11th TO DECEMBER 29th, 2024
MATÉRIALITÉ
PROGRAM ASSOCIATED WITH THE OCTOBRE NUMERIQUE - FAIRE MONDE FESTIVAL
from October 11 to December 29, 2024
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Matérialité
Materiality questions the nature of what is tangible, defining the concrete character of things. But what about the image? Is it matter? What is its nature?
This programme sets out to answer this complex question, without claiming to provide a definitive answer. It invites us to question what we see, and places the emphasis on research and creation, with a focus on experimentation, ongoing processes and provisional results. How do we produce an image? What makes an image? Experimentation reveals traces, those of the world, and sheds light on our relationship with living things.
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Matérialité
Materiality questions the nature of what is tangible, defining the concrete character of things. But what about the image? Is it matter? What is its nature?
This programme sets out to answer this complex question, without claiming to provide a definitive answer. It invites us to question what we see, and places the emphasis on research and creation, with a focus on experimentation, ongoing processes and provisional results. How do we produce an image? What makes an image? Experimentation reveals traces, those of the world, and sheds light on our relationship with living things.
The theme of materiality makes visible the structures that shape, fragment and generate the image in a present dominated by technological dematerialisation. Behind this apparent immateriality lie indispensable material elements: data, minerals and energy, which it is essential not to ignore. Digital surveillance also dematerialises human material, transforming it into sequences of numbers and behavioural analyses. The face, once a symbol of identity, is metamorphosed and concealed from the cameras. However, the same data, software and machines can also give rise to new forms.
This programme expresses the desire to dissect the image, to make it emerge as matter, to observe its wefts, to digest it and decode our world.
Artists
La CELLULE, Mathis CLODIC, Thaddé COMAR, Pierre CORBINAIS, Maud MARTIN
Guest curators Justine AYZAC, Vincent MONCHO, Guillaume PASCALE, Baptiste PLEDEL
Curator Florent BASILETTI
How was your dream ?
Thaddé COMAR
How was your dream ? is a photographic project realized during the Hong Kong protests between June and October 2019. This work deals with new forms of demonstration and insurrection in our post-contemporary era dominated by seamless control societies. Five years before, in Hong Kong, the “Umbrella Movement“ was quickly repressed by state and police violence. In 2019 the democratic uprising that began in May, gave itself the means to continue. Faced with a sophisticated arsenal of control (facial recognition, geolocation, carding, eavesdropping, infiltration, water cannons, tear gas, helicopter, sonic weapons, non-lethal rifles), the Hong Kong demonstrators have developed a repertoire of techniques based on principles of invisibility and intraceability (anonymity, lasers of blindness, pocket of faraday, vision by drones, masks of all kinds, encrypted communication etc...), allowing them to mitigate the effects of the repression. These new devices, which contribute to the transformation of the forms of struggle and resistance, however, push for the gradual erasure of individual singularities. In the future, will societies and sophisticated systems of control, force us to make our human singularities disappear ? Will this be done in favor of a new common identity ?
curators Florent BASILETTI, Justine AYZAC, Baptiste PLEDEL
partners Fondation Act On Your Future, InnovaArt
Matériaulogie des images
La Cellule
This exhibition presents the results of two years of research in art and creation, as part of the Matériaulogie des images project, led by some forty researchers and students. Born of the encounter between Sophie Lécole Solnychkine’s research in aesthetics Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès) and Yannick Vernet’s La Cellule laboratory (École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie), this project explores the image through matter. It examines the relationship between images and the world’s materials (earth, plants, biological processes) as active forces. By rethinking the image through these substances, the project invites an ecocentric and interdisciplinary approach, integrating aesthetics, science and ecological humanities. This approach aims to reveal the interrelationships between image forms and their environments, by experimenting with new ways of producing and understanding images, as close as possible to the elements of the living world. Project funded by the French Ministry of Culture as part of the “Research in art and design schools“ (RADAR).
partners École nationale supérieure de la Photographie
d’Arles, Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, Ministère de la Culture
Game Boy
Pierre CORBINAIS
Launched in 1998, the Game Boy Camera turns Nintendo’s famous handheld console into a rudimentary camera. Although visionary in certain respects, such as the front camera, “sticker” filters and animated GIFs, the image quality remains limited: 128x112 pixels, four shades of gray, fixed focal length, with only contrast and brightness adjustments.
Pierre Corbinais uses his Game Boy Camera to capture anonymous reflections, moving crowds and street scenes. The images, constrained by the technical capabilities of the device, invite us to see the world differently. Every detail, even the most banal, becomes a subject of observation, underlining the idea that everything in our daily lives can be captured, monitored and archived.
In this exhibition, the black-and-white photographs, transcending the limits of the Game Boy Camera, question our contemporary realities and the boundary between creativity and control. They demonstrate how an object, however playful or nostalgic, can be diverted from its initial use to become a powerful tool for reflecting on our hyper-connected society.
curators Florent BASILETTI, Vincent MONCHO
partners Octobre Numérique - Faire monde, InnovaArt
Archives
L’ENGAGEMENT
at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
PROGRAM ASSOCIATED WITH LES RENCONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE 2024
from july 1rst to september 29th, 2024
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
L’Engagement The exhibition explores the complexity of commitment through the prism of migration, globalization and identity crises. Through the works of various artists, it raises the dilemmas of the concept of legality and the tensions of belonging. The exhibition prompts us to reflect on our own responsibility and commitment, while paying tribute to the work of reportage.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the photographic prize awarded by the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation, we pay tribute to Camille Lepage, whose talent as a photojournalist remains engraved in our memories, despite her tragic death. Her unwavering commitment to bearing witness to the world’s often little-known realities deserves to be celebrated and honored.
Artists
Anas Aremeyaw ANAS, Chun-Yi CHANG, Muntaka CHASANT, Thaddé COMAR, Ljubiša DANILOVIĆ, Chiara DAZI, Guido GAZZILLI, Bénédicte KURZEN, Camille LEPAGE, Diego MORENO, Philippine SCHAEFER, Jun-Jieh WANG, Collectif Advantage Austria, Collectif LesAssociés, Institute Contemporary.
Guest curators Verdiana ALBANO, Anne-Marie BECKMANN, Christel BOGET, Christian JUNGWIRTH, Klaus KEHRER, Reanne LEUNING, Cornelia SIEBERT, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Curator BASILETTI Florent
Commitment manifests itself in a multitude of forms, from social movements to struggles against police violence, to questioning surveillance devices. Electronic waste, or E-Waste, raises fundamental questions about the ecological and human challenges posed by trans-border waste flows. They highlight issues such as corruption and the limits of legality, and are at the heart of activism and committed artistic projects.
The exhibition also probes our personal commitment to society, the search for meaning in our lives and our actions. It reveals our passions, our desires, but also our deepest fears. The commitment is artistic, sensory and militant, as this program cannot be considered without taking into account the human and political crises currently afflicting the world.
Once again this year, Fotohaus enriches the Foundation's proposals by broadening the theme of commitment. With Beliefs and Existence, the artists propose visual answers to the fundamental existential question: how to live a human life?
The exhibition also probes our personal commitment to society, the search for meaning in our lives and our actions. It reveals our passions, our desires, but also our deepest fears. The commitment is artistic, sensory and militant, as this program cannot be considered without taking into account the human and political crises currently afflicting the world.
Once again this year, Fotohaus enriches the Foundation's proposals by broadening the theme of commitment. With Beliefs and Existence, the artists propose visual answers to the fundamental existential question: how to live a human life?
Hommage
Camille LEPAGE
It’s hard to believe that it’s already ten years since Camille Lepage was killed. Through this commemoration, we remember her exceptional talent and dedication as a photojournalist, particularly in conflict zones such as the Central African Republic. In 2014, Camille Lepage was awarded the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation’s first Award of Excellence, a well-deserved recognition of her work. Tragically, however, she did not have the opportunity to receive it in person. A ceremony was organized during the exhibition at Galerie Huit, where Maryvonne Lepage, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz and the mayor of Arles were present to pay tribute to Camille Lepage. Today, as the world continues to face complex realities, we honor Camille Lepage’s commitment, courage and determination.
partners Association Camille Lepage - On est ensemble, Innova Art
How was your dream ?
Thaddé COMAR
How was your dream ? is a photographic project realized during the Hong Kong protests between June and October 2019. This work deals with new forms of demonstration and insurrection in our post-contemporary era dominated by seamless control societies. Five years before, in Hong Kong, the “Umbrella Movement“ was quickly repressed by state and police violence. In 2019 the democratic uprising that began in May, gave itself the means to continue. Faced with a sophisticated arsenal of control (facial recognition, geolocation, carding, eavesdropping, infiltration, water cannons, tear gas, helicopter, sonic weapons, non-lethal rifles), the Hong Kong demonstrators have developed a repertoire of techniques based on principles of invisibility and intraceability (anonymity, lasers of blindness, pocket of faraday, vision by drones, masks of all kinds, encrypted communication etc…), allowing them to mitigate the effects of the repression. These new devices, which contribute to the transformation of the forms of struggle and resistance, however, push for the gradual erasure of individual singularities. In the future, will societies and sophisticated systems of control, force us to make our human singularities disappear? Will this be done in favor of a new common identity ?
curator Florent BASILETTI
partners Fondation Act On Your Future, Epson
Georgia - Une histoire des migrations
Ljubiša DANILOVIĆ
Georgia is the name of the ship that brought a certain Ljubiša Danilovic to New York in 1906, a ni neteen-yearold Montenegrin dreaming of a different life. A century later, in Butte, a mining town in Montana, the photographer and his namesake began a fictional conversation about exile. In 2021, Ljubiša Danilovic imagines the journey that will take him from his native Montenegro to the United States, repeating a journey comparable in every way to those that thousands of migrants around the world must undertake today. In his book of the same name, Ljubiša Danilovic combines photographs of the town of Butte, of a Montenegro that offers few horizons to young adults who dream of elsewhere, of a nostalgic Montenegro - that of his childhood - of migrants he met in Paris, Calais or Sarajevo, and of others who have spent their lives far from their country of birth... With the same voice, Ljubiša Danilovic tells the small story, but also, of course, the great story of exile. “I have tried to respond in images to the emotional journey of my namesake through his experience of uprooting.“ Alternating text and photographs, black and white and colour, author’s eye and documentary work, Georgia is an imaginary epistolary relationship on the theme of exile, but also and above all a historical perspective on the phenomenon of migration.
curator Florent BASILETTI
partners Fujifilm, Slika Printscenographer Elizabeth GUYON
from March 15th to May 19th 2024
This spring at the Foundation
LE DESSIN, CE MESSAGER
from April 20th to May 19th 202418 rue de la Calade — Arles
Festival du dessin Behind the striking graphic spectacle of these drawn works, at first glance so different from one another, lies the sensibility of those who are caught in the mesh of the appearance of things. Sometimes inspired by photography, sometimes by documentary or radically imaginary, these artists invite us to a feast for the eyes and the mind, offering us their unfiltered, unrestrained reappropriation of the world.
Artists Antoine CAPITANI, Jean-Michel JAQUET, Kiki PICASSO, Christian ROUX
Curators Pavel SCHMIDT, Florent BASILETTI
LA REVUE L’AMOUR : A LA GLOIRE DU DESSIN
from April 20th to May 19th 202418 rue de la Calade — Arles
Festival du dessin On October 14, 2021, a new literary and artistic magazine appeared in bookshops: L'Amour. Singular voices - those of writers, essayists, scientists and artists of different generations and nationalities - expressed themselves freely, accompanied by an equal number of new and established illustrators. “Life, art and poetry are crying out for new supporters, says its creator, Frédéric Pajak, in the first editorial. As in an “Auberge espagnole”, they share what they have. That's what L'Amour is all about.” Around a hundred drawings, taken from various issues of the magazine, retrace this bold project.
Curator Francis VOLKEN
ZIRK & PEOGO
from december 8 to december 30, 2023
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Soum Eveline BONKOUNGOU Soum Eveline Bonkoungou was born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 1992. She starts out by assisting event photographers for 2 years, then meets Burkinabe photographer Adrien Bitibaly, who introduces her to auteur photography.
In 2021, she takes part in the mentoring program at Photosa, Ouagadougou’s biennial photographyfestival. The same year, she joins CERPHOB (Cercle des Photographes du Burkina) and becomes a member of the festival’s organizing committee. In 2023, she exhibits her project Zirk at the second edition of Photosa. She carries out a creative residency at the Leschangeurs cultural center in Agbodrafo, Togo. In collaboration with the Bauhaus Universität Weimar, Germany, she creates theproject M’YINGA, mon corps, exhibited in late 2022 and early 2023.
In June 2023, Eveline begins a residency at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation, where she works with Florent Basiletti on her artistic projects. She is also responsible for coordinating artists during the Les Rencontres d’Arles festival. During the Fotohaus Berlin 2023 program, Eveline projects her Peogo series, and organizes a meeting- projection around her work Zirk at Scharaun, Berlin. Sheexhibits Zirk and Peogo in Arles, in December 2023, at the Fondation MRO.
In January and February 2024, Eveline exhibits her Zirk series at the Goethe Institut in Ouagadougou, and in April 2024 her Peogo series at the Emoi photographique festival in Angoulême.
Zirk is a form of Islamic meditation in which phrases or prayers are chanted repeatedly. In Sufi Islam, Zirk refers to both the act of remembering and the prayers used in these acts of recollection. Coming from a Muslim family, this is the religion of my childhood. My parents were the ones who decided what I should believe and what path I should follow in my religious practice. All these questions arose from the realization that I didn’t feel in tune with my own convictions, and that I didn’t feel a divine connection in my relationship with Islam. “For me, faith is personal” she said.
Peogo is a traditional basket offered at weddings in Burkina Faso (the bride’s basket or Pougpal Péogo in Mooré). These dishes are the pride of some couples and are often used for important occasions or as trophies by families. However, thispractice is less and less common, as young Burkinabé couples find these dishes cumbersome. This work is accompanied by recorded testimonials and stories about this tradition, which has been handed down from generation to generation. It reveals the objects that make up the Peogo, such as the calabash, the sieve and the spatula, generally kitchen utensils described as indispensable to the young wife when she joins her husband’s court.
partners : Embassy of France in Burkina Faso, Goethe-Institut Ouagadougou, Photosa - biennale photographique du Burkina Faso, Atelier SHL, La Kabine
from november 3 to december 30 2023
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Portes insulaires The Portes insulaires exhibition program is an invitation to unknown, shifting territories; an exploration of tributaries, through sediments, to meet their inhabitants. Deceptively wild worlds, marked by a strong sense of belonging, with the ambition of ultimate control mixed with a striking powerlessness
We set off to discover the Danube delta, the second- largest delta in Europe after the Volga, with a surface area of 3,446 km2; a protected natural region that has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1991. Camilla de Maffei captures this territory through the four seasons, meeting its inhabitants and discovering the source of the river, which rises in Germany, in the Black Forest mountains, and ends in the Black Sea. This delta is Europe’s largest wetland area, five times the size of the Camargue, with only 13% of the total surface area on dry land.
Mathias Benguigui takes a look at the Rhône delta, the Camargue delta. A land of myths, fantasies and legends. An oasis of biodiversity under socio-political pressure and an unprecedented environmental crisis. A land of contradiction, with a sense of isolation and ileity, but also boosted by tourism through its wild and idyllic image.
In the Mediterranean and Provence, water control is very important, shaping the economy and its livability. A sense of direction (Le sens de l’orientation) allows us to map territories and better understand them. Elizabeth Guyon creates this cartography by walking to the rhythm of the water along the Canal de Craponne. This Renaissance canal irrigates and fertilizes a large part of the Crau, the arid steppe left by the paleo delta of the Durance. Elizabeth creates encounters with a perspective of sharing, capturing the echo between water and dialogue.
Artists
BENGUIGUI Mathias, DE MAFFEI Camilla, GUYON Elizabeth et LUZ Joana
Curator BASILETTI Florent
Curator BASILETTI Florent
from july 3 to september 24, 2023
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Grow Up Grow Up is a programme of exhibitions, offering a cross-section of views on the movement of plants around the world. Cradle of biodiversity and environmental tensions, the twenty or so artists are based in South America, Central America and Taiwan.
Each focus highlights the relationship between plants and humans, exploring the local relationships of a territory but also international ones. This geographical scale cuts across political, social and environmental narratives and issues, as well as post-colonial issues. From the Amazon, to Costa Rica, to Taiwan, the projects cross master plants, shamanism, drugs but also the sensitive exploration of a territory.
This relation to plants is central, they are sacred and at the heart of local cultures and beliefs, Grow up wishes to cultivate and increase awareness of our relationship with living things. Fotohaus is invited to extend this programme with Nature et Société.
Artists
ATOCHA Pepe, BELTON Teo et GOUPIL Florence, BRASEY Thomas, COP Steph et PÖRNECZI Bálint, CROZE Céline, DE LATTRE Matthias, DINIZ José, ESCANDÓN Arguiñe et GROSS Yann, HENRY Nicolas, HERNÁNDEZ BRICEÑO Andrea, LAGHOUATI-RASHWAN Samir, LATHUILLÈRE Marc, MORAES Gabriel, NISSEN Mads, PROTTI Tommaso, RENARD Antoine. HSU Cheng-Tang, KUO Che-Hsi, WU Chuan-Lun. ALBANO Verdiana, CHAPUIS Isabelle, SCHAEFER Philippine, LesAssociés, Docks Collective, fiVe collective.
Guest curators BEAUSSE Pascal, BOGET Christel, CHANG Meg, MELLO Ioana, KEHRER Klaus.
Curator BASILETTI Florent
Ayañawi
Pepe ATOCHA
Plants communicate with each other and with their environment. During two years of immersion in the jungles of Peru, Pepe Atocha uses an experimental process to capture the essence of plants. After a three-week ayahuasca retreat with Shipibo healers, the artist decided to photograph with fire, a vision that came like a gentle, silent dance to the rhythm of the wind.
The Amazon has been shaped by man for centuries, its composition the product of the work of indigenous peoples, the series is composed of portraits of healers and portraits of trees. At a time when traditional medicine is being defeated by a virus, the Shipibo healers remind us that we can heal ourselves by taking care of nature and ourselves.
curator Florent BASILETTI
PROJECTION
Cumbia’s day
Teo BELTON & Florence GOUPIL
Cumbia’s day. The oral tradition is the breath of the Earth. In Peru, thirty-seven indigenous languages have become extinct in the last hundred years. The indigenous elders and chiefs are disappearing and, with them, the living memory of the Earth and its biodiversity.
Cuidantsiqmi: Love and care for the land. The Quechua-Wari indigenous people, living in the Cordillera Blanca in Ancash, Peru, are facing an environmental disaster that puts their lives in danger. First, there hasbeen an important melting of the ice caps. Now, drought and extreme heat have destroyed their agriculture and complicated their access to drinking water, affecting their physical and mental health. In the Ancash region, the high rate of malnutrition continues to grow.
curator Florent BASILETTI
partners The National Geographic Society’s Emergency Fund for Journlists, The Wellcome Trust Foundation
Boaventura
Thomas BRASEY
In 1819, driven by starvation and economic crisis, about 2000 Swiss people emigrated to Brazil. After a deadly journey, they founded the town of Nova Friburgo in the mountains surrounding Rio de Janeiro. Their new lands, which were supposed to allow the development of a
profitable agriculture, barely provided enough to feed, and the settlers scattered. Some returned to Rio where they lived in poverty and crime, others headed North where coffee could be grown, and made prosperous business there, particularly thanks to slavery.
curators Florent BASILETTI, Klauss KEHRER
partners Kehrer Verlag
from September 29 to December 24, 2022
at 18 rue de la Calade - Arles
Ascendance brings together fifteen artists offering unique perspectives on the notion of human rights. With the invitation of Francesca Todde, in residence at the Foundation, and a collaboration with the Act on your future Foundation, 13 emerging artists have been selected as finalists or winners of the Human Rights Photography Award.
Curator Florent BASILETTI
Partners Fondation Act on your future, Atelier SHL, Boutographies, Théâtre du Centaure
La Nation Subtile
Francesca TODDE
La Nation Subtile is a collection of different researches about the relationship between animals and humans. The people we meet - who are able to bring new perspectives to this interaction - form a kind of nation. Whether they are researchers, shepherds, acrobats or bird trainers, they are interested in how another species uses the world. The images try to tune into lost sensations, Francesca proposes a new interpretation of the world through an attention to the perspective of other species, broadening the contents of the human-animal bond.
partners Atelier SHL, Boutographie et le Théâtre du Centaure
Noms Inconnus
Zoé Aubry
In his form of thinking, his work is about freedom, anxiety, research, cohesion, connivance, playing with critical and political issues. Positioning her work between a societal and media critique, her research and works are structured around the problematic of the modes of view and the transformation of the formats of perception, interrogating the uses and actions related to the erased names of victims of systemic and structural murders. Damaged, the anti-images she uses act, activate, arm, suture and reconstitute themselves in a collective movement.
partner Fondation Act on your Future
Corpus
Guillaume DELLEUSE
In a certain way, all of Guillaume Delleuse's photographs are portraits. Portraits of cities, portraits of streets, portraits of bodies, portraits of the vulnerabilities of a society and the stigmas of the individuals that compose it. The obvious hardness of the images hides an attentive relationship with this world of wrinkles, scars, and inglorious bodies that are offered or stolen. Tattoos that are so many fakes, evaporated hopes or derisory costumes. An attentive complicity which puts together, image by image, the puzzle of our anxieties and our questions. François Bazzoli
partner Fondation Act on your Future
from march 4 to may 28 2023
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Beyond a specific discipline, Gilles conveys multiple expressions in whic the fabric of stories is woven, mixed, imprinted with emotions, aiming totranscribe the elegance of the moment, borne by a constant flow of inner music. As a dancer, he carries his energy towards an elsewhere, without borders, while being framed by the grid of the world, in particular through his architectural studies. Dance offers intervals like the dial of time and space and allows to adjust the vital flow that links beings and makes things feel. Gilles provokes this fleeting and succinct space-time to make it light. The exhibition Space between things is a retrospective of Gilles Massot's work, whose common thread is the history of the image, its manufacture and reproduction. The exhibition is above all a question about the multiple connections that make up Gilles Massot's multidisciplinary work, bringing together traces of a large part of his life as an artist and a traveling historian. The sequences in the exhibition refer to the process that underlies his work; a process that has seen him make connections between narratives, techniques, occurrences and parts of the world over the years. The selection of works engages as a deciphering of the artist's ideas and reflections on our relationship to the image, to photography and to creation; time and space, two themes at the heart of his quest. A pioneering look at the mixing of mediums, through theory, Gilles reveals a complex white space, an image in the making or already past and thus invisible. He offers us a rewriting of the history of photography, from the beginnings of one of the first photographic reporters, Jules Itier, to the mysteries of the pyramids of Egypt. The whole confronts globalization with the diversity and multiplication of uses.
Curator Florent BASILETTI
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Beyond a specific discipline, Gilles conveys multiple expressions in whic the fabric of stories is woven, mixed, imprinted with emotions, aiming totranscribe the elegance of the moment, borne by a constant flow of inner music. As a dancer, he carries his energy towards an elsewhere, without borders, while being framed by the grid of the world, in particular through his architectural studies. Dance offers intervals like the dial of time and space and allows to adjust the vital flow that links beings and makes things feel. Gilles provokes this fleeting and succinct space-time to make it light. The exhibition Space between things is a retrospective of Gilles Massot's work, whose common thread is the history of the image, its manufacture and reproduction. The exhibition is above all a question about the multiple connections that make up Gilles Massot's multidisciplinary work, bringing together traces of a large part of his life as an artist and a traveling historian. The sequences in the exhibition refer to the process that underlies his work; a process that has seen him make connections between narratives, techniques, occurrences and parts of the world over the years. The selection of works engages as a deciphering of the artist's ideas and reflections on our relationship to the image, to photography and to creation; time and space, two themes at the heart of his quest. A pioneering look at the mixing of mediums, through theory, Gilles reveals a complex white space, an image in the making or already past and thus invisible. He offers us a rewriting of the history of photography, from the beginnings of one of the first photographic reporters, Jules Itier, to the mysteries of the pyramids of Egypt. The whole confronts globalization with the diversity and multiplication of uses.
Curator Florent BASILETTI
GILLES MASSOT
ARTIST, THEORIST, HISTORIAN
His visual arts practice deals more specifically with the theory of photography and its relationship to time and space. He teaches at LASALLE - College of the Arts in Singapore. He has received the French cultural distinction of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. After studying architecture and photography in Marseille, he moved to Singapore in 1981. His participation in the local art scene saw him involved in a series of art events. In the 1990s, he traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe, a lifestyle that resulted in over fifty exhibitions and an extensive body of editorial work published in various magazines in Asia and Europe. In 2010, he is developing a research on Jules Itier who made the first daguerreotypes of China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Vietnam in 1844-45. Under the name of his alter ego Professor Ma, he is also pursuing a research on the parallels and crossings between the respective histories of photography and quantum mechanics.
EVENT
OPENING ON FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2023 AT 7PM
To replay Art of Parties, the foundation proposes a series of party happenings with the archives of the 90's parties in Singapore. Magical nights until 2am.
FIRE AND ICE - FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2023
MAGIC NIGHT - SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2023
EXOTIC CABARET - FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2023
WHITE PARTY - SATURDAY, MAY 27, 2023
rsvp e.knapp@mrofoundation.org
Guided tour program to come.
Blood Orange
Naranja de Sangre
Liza AMBROSSIO
It all starts with a mental image: an orange that bleeds. Infected with the aesthetics of Japanese counterculture and Aztec rituals of human sacrifice as a form of poetics, Liza Ambrossio mixes performance, spatial intervention, video, installation, techniques of psychological manipulation, science fiction, eroguru, and witchcraft.
curators Florent BASILETTI, Klaus KEHRER
partners Kehrer Verlag, ChromaLuxe
The Savage, the Fool and the Bear & The Mamuthones
Michela BENAGLIA & Antonio D’AMBROSIO
Savages, Fools and Bears are represented in traditional myths and ancestral rites around the world in the form of anthropological masks that are at times very similar to each other. The masks are creatures from a parallel universe. They live inside every human being, they are the expression of our deepest and most ancestral instincts. Beasts or Monsters who do not need to hide the Man inside them.
In Mamoiada, a pagan rite is celebrated whose origins are lost in the mists of time. At the centre of the ritual are the Mamuthones and the Issohadores: two male characters who, although dressed differently and seemingly in contrast, are in fact complementary, inseparable and indisputable. The ritual begins with the dressing up, which reaches its climax when the Mamuthones and Issohadores put on their masks.
curators Chiara RUBERTI, Enrico STEFANELLI
partner Photolux Festival
Spiritual Fabrics
Delphine BLAST & Bruno CATTANI
In Fleurs de l'Isthme, the photographer portrays Zapotec women, who have become icons of Mexican and indigenous femininity. The seriality of the portraits materializes this community of powerful women and their sisterhood. The clothing is placed at the centre as a marker of their identity, in a refined decorum that leaves room for the details of the materials (velvet, satin, lace, flowers) and the individuality of the models.
Vodoo is a series of photographs made in Benin and Togo in 2019 about voodoo rituals. Benin is the place where Voodoo was born. In this tradition live the rituals of the Egungun, the living ghosts of Benin, Togo, and other parts of West Africa. Each Egungun appears in the form of a robed figure, giving the impression that the deceased is making a temporary reappearance on Earth. This impression is reinforced by the voluminous costumes of the Egungun; the fabrics and patterns they use express the power of the ancestor.
curator Agathe KALFAS
partners Atelier SHL, Filip, Tienda Esquipula
Sous les Jupes
Robin BLOCK DE FRIBERG
It was during a trip to Japan that the idea for the Under the Skirts series emerged. In this country, all telephones are calibrated to trigger a sound or light alarm as soon as one wants to take a photo, however banal it may be, a system put in place to track down male perverts in public transport. This is the starting point for a personal reflection on this garment and the latent voyeurism that surrounds it.
curator Florent BASILETTI
du 21 mai au 12 juin 2022
au Palazzo Duccale — Lucca, Italie
Embarquez pour un roadtrip sur le chemin de l'amour en territoire kurde.
Afin de questionner l’intersection entre lutte contre le patriarcat et lutte d’indépendance kurde Laura Lafon entame un documentaire à l’est de la Turquie sur l’amour. What is love ?
Mais Laura ne voyage pas seule. Accompagnée par un amant photographe, Martin Gallone, leur duo est source incessante de questions. Commence alors un dialogue de jeu photographique. Comment les jeunes kurdes envisagent et vivent l’amour dans un contexte très traditionnel ? Que représente le fantasme du couple libre occidental ?
Les autoportraits de leur couple inventé se mêlent aux mises en scène réalisées avec les jeunes kurdes. Lafon questionne les hommes, le sexe, l’amour, le mariage, ces paroles nous font naviguer entre amours interdites, traditions et patriarcat suffoquant.
You could even die for not being a real couple, rappelle que l’intime est politique. C’est un dialogue à la fois tragique et drôle sur les constructions sociales de l’amour et les contextes culturels de son exercice. Une autofiction qui nous entraîne dans une histoire d’amour au Kurdistan, ce pays qui se bat pour exister.
Afin de questionner l’intersection entre lutte contre le patriarcat et lutte d’indépendance kurde Laura Lafon entame un documentaire à l’est de la Turquie sur l’amour. What is love ?
Mais Laura ne voyage pas seule. Accompagnée par un amant photographe, Martin Gallone, leur duo est source incessante de questions. Commence alors un dialogue de jeu photographique. Comment les jeunes kurdes envisagent et vivent l’amour dans un contexte très traditionnel ? Que représente le fantasme du couple libre occidental ?
Les autoportraits de leur couple inventé se mêlent aux mises en scène réalisées avec les jeunes kurdes. Lafon questionne les hommes, le sexe, l’amour, le mariage, ces paroles nous font naviguer entre amours interdites, traditions et patriarcat suffoquant.
You could even die for not being a real couple, rappelle que l’intime est politique. C’est un dialogue à la fois tragique et drôle sur les constructions sociales de l’amour et les contextes culturels de son exercice. Une autofiction qui nous entraîne dans une histoire d’amour au Kurdistan, ce pays qui se bat pour exister.
Laura Lafon (1989. Toulouse) est photographe, éditrice et directrice artistique de Gaze, la revue des regards féminins. Elle est aussi à l'initiative de Lusted Men, une collection de photographies érotiques d’hommes.
Elle aime les images, en faire, en collecter, en commander... et voit la photo comme un jeu doté d’un énorme pouvoir : représenter de nouvelles visions du monde.
Martin Gallone (1990. Provence) est photographe et réalisateur. Membre de l’artist-run space La Nombreuse à Bruxelles. Il réalise des projets à long terme dans lesquels les frontières entre travail documentaire et vie personnelle s’effacent.
Depuis 2015 avec Nicolas Catalano il documente la scène musicale bruxelloise sous le nom ‘La Straussphère’.
Commissaire d’exposition Florent BASILETTI.
Partenaire PhotoLux Festival.
Merci à nos équipes, à l’artiste, au commissaire et, en particulier, aux partenaires de l’exposition.
du 15 avril au 9 juin 2022
au 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
This exhibition The Dignity of Gypsies gathers photographs taken by Christine Turnauer between
2011 and 2016, initially in India – to where we can trace back the roots of the Gypsies, then in
Eastern Europe, where her travels took her to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo and Montenegro.
The different trades photographed create a bridge between the Indian nomads and the Gypsies of
Eastern Europe. All her travels have given rise to inspiring and moving photographs.
On the second floor, this exhibition also presents a Homage to my friends Gitanos with photographs taken mostly in Arles in 2019. During her “Presence” exhibition staged as a co-production between KLV Art Project and the City of Arles’ Culture department in Saint Anne’s Chapel in 2018, the photographer Christine Turnauer forged friendships that inspired her to make a tribute to her friends Gitanos from Arles and the Camargue in this retrospective exhibition of her work on the Gypsies presented at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation from April to June 2022.
This personal exhibition brings together almost 125 black and white photographs over the Foundation’s three floors.
Christine Turnauer’s photographs on Gypsies were previously presented for the first time in Austria at the Forum am Schillerplatz in October 2017, with the release of her photo book “The Dignity of Gypsies” published in two languages (English, German) by Hatje Cantz in Europe in 2017 and D.A.P Publishing for the United States in 2018. This book, as well as some collector’s prints, were also exclusively presented in San Francisco (2018, KLV Art Project) and Shanghai (2018, KLV Art Project).
On the second floor, this exhibition also presents a Homage to my friends Gitanos with photographs taken mostly in Arles in 2019. During her “Presence” exhibition staged as a co-production between KLV Art Project and the City of Arles’ Culture department in Saint Anne’s Chapel in 2018, the photographer Christine Turnauer forged friendships that inspired her to make a tribute to her friends Gitanos from Arles and the Camargue in this retrospective exhibition of her work on the Gypsies presented at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation from April to June 2022.
This personal exhibition brings together almost 125 black and white photographs over the Foundation’s three floors.
Christine Turnauer’s photographs on Gypsies were previously presented for the first time in Austria at the Forum am Schillerplatz in October 2017, with the release of her photo book “The Dignity of Gypsies” published in two languages (English, German) by Hatje Cantz in Europe in 2017 and D.A.P Publishing for the United States in 2018. This book, as well as some collector’s prints, were also exclusively presented in San Francisco (2018, KLV Art Project) and Shanghai (2018, KLV Art Project).
Christine Turnauer (1946-) started her photographic career in Paris where she apprenticed to various photographers. From 1974 to 1976, she was the assistant to Frank Horvat, and then until 1979 she worked as a freelance photographer. In 1979, she emigrated to Alberta, in Western Canada, where she pursued various photographic projects, the most important one being the portraits of North-American Native Indian traditional dancers.
In 1992, a publication of her work with the title Portraits was published in Canada and in 2019, in Europe and the United States, under the title I saw more than I can tell by Hatje Cantz and D.A.P Publishing. This series of photographs was notably on show at the Weltmuseum in Vienna from May 2021 to January 2022.
Since her return to Europe in 1995, she has traveled to Japan, Romania, Ethiopia, Jerusalem, India, Greece, Turkey, and Mongolia to pursue her photographic work. In 2014, her series of black-and-white portraits from these travels and encounters was published under the title Presence by Hatje Cantz. It was exhibited in Vienna in 2014 and in Arles in 2018 (KLV Art Project and the City of Arles).
Her new photographic project concentrates on the dignity of the Gypsies, which took her to the North-West of India where the roots begin, and then through Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Kosovo. The book The Dignity of the Gypsies was published by Hatje Cantz in Europe in September 2017 and D.A.P Publishing for the United States in 2018.
In 2018, during her exhibition Presence in Arles, she was fortunate to meet some of the Gypsies of Arles. They became friends, which inspired her to make a tribute to her friends Gitanos from Arles and from the Camargue region, also on show in this exhibition.
Curator Karine LISBONNE.
Partners KLV Art Projects, Le Forum Culturel Autrichien.
Thanks to our team, to the artist, to the curator and, particularly to the partners of the exhibition.
Les Chants de l’Asphodèle
Mathias BENGUIGUI & Agathe KALFAS
Asphodel Songs is a four-handed work mixing text and images, carried out by Agathe Kalfas and Mathias Benguigui on the island of Lesbos between 2016 and 2020. Navigating at the borders of documentary and fiction, this long-term work invites to a new reading of this highly mediatised territory’s contemporary issues, by bringing together traces of the past, mythology and migration’s collective memory...
curator Lionel CHARRIER
partners Atelier SHL, ChromaLuxe, Fujifilm France
Au bord du Réel
Jean-Christian BOURCART
Jean Christian Bourcart offers us strange, hallucinatory shapes, ghostly, improbable characters which pop out from an image generator and invade and contaminate the photographic archives of a small Breton village.
Artificial surfaces collide with areas of reality, a fantasized space where truth and falsehood come together, past and future clash and seduce each other. Superposition of layers that reveal material of the virtual and virtuality of the material...
curator Thierry MERRÉ
partner HASY Galerie
Sauvegarde Retrouvée 2.0
Jérôme CORTIE
In 1977, the Villeneuve-de-la-Raho reservoir in the Pyrénées Orientales was built, flooding pre-existing cultures. Many years later, while researching the bottom of the dry lake, “chemigrams” were found.
Sauvegarde retrouvée 2.0 is an exhibition that unfolds a fictional space during an archaeological excavation of the future. The researchers no longer have any recollection of the analogic past of photography…
curator Luce LEBART
partners Atelier SHL, ChromaLuxe, Ecole nationale supérieure Louis Lumière
Drop Out
Hoël DURET
The film Drop Out is an anticipatory, climate-fiction tale that follows its narrator to New Zealand in search of a cure for the upcoming climate crisis. In a territory where man has recently settled, he thinks he can discover an alternative to old societies that no longer accept being dependent on their environment. As he shares the writing of his film with a group of students, general confusion spreads across the island. The health crisis of spring 2020 catches up with the writing and its catastrophic fiction is insidiously close to reality...
curator Florent BASILETTI
partner ChromaLuxe
Surviving Humanity
Alberto GIULIANI
SURVIVING HUMANITY explores the future of humanity. Climate change, demography, nuclear war, migrations, pandemic. In the coming decades, according to expert opinion, we will face enormous challenges. And for the first time in history, we will be dealing with our survival. This work explores what science is doing around the world to face the future. SURVIVING HUMANITY meets those unknown men and women handling with our destiny and narrates places where a human being is organizing his resilience…
curator Enrico STEFANELLI
partner PHOTOLUX
from July 4th to September 26th 2021
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Échos système is an exhibition program focusing on the uncertain, changing living world. The artists’ various approaches immerse us in current issues involving migration (Les Chants de l’Asphodèle, Mathias Benguigui and Agathe Kalfas), memory (Sauvegarde retrouvée 2.0, Jérôme Cortie; Cuba, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz), and feminism (Les Marques, Elsa Leydier). Virtual and augmented reality (Au bord du réel, Jean-Christian Bourcart) and archives (AMC Seeds, Archives of Modern Conflicts ; Time Atlas, Niina Vatanen) shape a fresh vision and perception of the living world and the social relations resulting from it. These narratives express our fears through the imagination (D’ici, ça ne paraît pas si loin, LesAssociés)—or violence (American Mirror, Philip Montgomery). These visions explore the aspects of the individual, the solitude (Métropolis, Barbara Wolff), gender (Identité et masque, Anno Wilms), or eroticism (Behind Desire, Chaussee 36), in connection with the theme of Fotohaus, Persona. An interrelated system facing a multitude of questions today, including health (Sauver les corps, LesAssociés/ParisBerlin), ecological and political ones (Drop Out, Hoël Duret), asks questions about the future of humankind (Surviving Humanity, Alberto Giuliani).
Exhibition Curators
Marc BARBEY, Florent BASILETTI, Anne-Marie BECKMANN, Christel BOGET, Lionel CHARRIER, Klaus KEHRER, Luce LEBART, Mathilde LEROY, Timothy PRUS, Chiara RUBERTI, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Marc BARBEY, Florent BASILETTI, Anne-Marie BECKMANN, Christel BOGET, Lionel CHARRIER, Klaus KEHRER, Luce LEBART, Mathilde LEROY, Timothy PRUS, Chiara RUBERTI, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Grand partners 2021
ChromaLuxe, Fotohaus
Partners 2021
AMC, Arte, Atelier SHL, Chaussee 36, Collection Regard, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Fujifilm, Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus, HASY Galerie, Institut français Berlin,Kehrer Verlag, LesAssociés, Les Filles de la Photo, ENS Louis-Lumière, ParisBerlin>fotogroup, Picto, PHOTOLUX, Stiftung Anno Wilms, Total Allemagne, WhiteWall
Events
July 7th at 5pm
Preview and launch of the exhibitions with the artists and curators
from July 4th to July 11th
During the opening week, come along for a meeting, a visit, a debate, or just a look !
Thanks to our team, our artists, our curators and, in particular,
to the Rencontres d'Arles and our partners 2021.
Photobooks
available at our library
Here are our exhibitions’ corresponding photobooks, write to us if you wish to reserve a signed copy.
June 29th to September 20th, 2020
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
These are unprecedented times. We have all been impacted but our work continues. Yes we want to open our doors and our arms to invite you to the MROF summer 2020 exhibition Pioneers.
We strive to open for you, our visitors who numbered 40,000 last year, and for the 23 artists and curators who put their hearts into this program. With our partners, especially ChromaLuxe our grand partner, we join to support those who shine a light on the challenges of our time. And moreover, we strive to open for the people and causes portrayed on our walls.
In Arles, the capital of photography, the MRO Foundation gives voice to men and women who move beyond the boundaries of their own limits, outside society’s established norms of humanity and environment.
In our 600 square meters of exhibition space, socially safe and within all established health guidelines, Pioneers will bring in the resonance of photographers, videographers, sound designers, activists and citizens committed to improving our lives and enlarging our consciousness of the world’s diversity
Curators
Nicolas HAVETTE, Nicole BERTOLT, Lionel CHARRIER, Audrey HOAREAU.
Grand partner 2020 ChromaLuxe
Partners 2020 Ministère de la Culture République de Chine (Taiwan), Centre culturel de Taiwan à Paris, Hospice Général, Universal Music Francce, Cohérie Boris Vian, Fujifilm, Action Collective Temporaire Blinkl, Les lectures électrique, Atelier SHL.
HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON?
at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
View the 2019 Press Kit →
July 1st to September 22nd, 2019
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
Hey! What’s going on? Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Going On delivered the sublime message of universal love, perfectly expressed on the album’s cover art with an expressionless, yet serene, face standing in the rain. This is the attitude called for by the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation. Forgotten songs are reawakened from the United States, China, Ukraine, Brazil, Italy and Taiwan.
In a time of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, where populism and sectarianism have found fertile ground from which to spread new world disorganization, the program Hey! What’s Going On? rings out like a call to consciousness, to dignity and to peace, while keeping a special attention to the forgotten population of the big media’s focus.
Curators
Nicolas HAVETTE, Madj, Nicolas LEVY, Laura SERANI, Ioana DE MELLO, Laura NOBLE, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Grand partner 2019 ChromaLuxe
Partners 2019 CPAFFC, Centre culturel de Taiwan à Paris, Universal Music France, Motown, Iandé, PHOTOLUX, Atelier SHL, Johein Technology Inc.
July 2nd to September 23rd, 2018
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
HOPE explores the formal possibilities of the image as document and the document as an agent of knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues. HOPE presents photography as an experience, a sharing. It presents the work of people who have chosen to create images, sometimes in parallel with their professions, to influence their lives and environment. Photographers are not merely witnesses, but become actors, using all the means available to them: from camera to smartphone, from artist’s book to Instagram collection.
Exploring this exhibition will be a ritual, sometimes solemn, sometimes playful, always heartfelt, for awareness is inseparable from emotion and study.
Refusing to categorize the world through an established documentary esthetic, the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation shares with you the creative energy of the international documentary scene.
Curators
Nicolas HAVETTE, Alain MINGAM, Cathy EDELMAN, Anette SKUGGEDAL, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Grand partner 2018 ChromaLuxe
Partners 2018 Ministère de la Culture de la République de Chine (Taiwan), Centre culturel de Taiwan à Paris, Diaphane, CASE Art Fund, Le Magasin des Jouets, LUMINA Gallery, Muscari, PHOTOLUX, Atelier SHL.
Enri CANAJ
Ismail FERDOUS
Edith PIAF
fotofever
Tony GENTILE
Pablo Ernesto PIOVANO
View the 2017 Press Kit →
July 3rd to September 23rd, 2017
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
THE ARLES DOC’HOUSE is the third summer exhibition organized by our Foundation in the 17th-century-mansion Hotel Blain. We are commited to presenting the public with leading-edge documentary projects that are impacting, thoughtful and inspiring from our curatorial point of view - everconscious of puting forth powerful and eloquent stories that addresshumanity, social justice, and other issues of our times.
This year’s summer program examines documentary from serveral perspective: the life of a singer (Edith Piaf with Universal Music France), the gaze of our laureates (Enri Canaj and Ismail Ferdous, 2016 MRO Prize winners), the journey of Mafia (Tony Gentile presented by PhotoLux) or our newest partners Tënk and Fotofever’s selection.
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation, with the support of the City of Arle,s stands today as a cornerstone of humanist photography and film in Southern France ; defending documentary works in a unique and socially responsible perspective.
Curators Nicolas HAVETTE, Tanguy DAIRAINE, Cécile SCHALL, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Partners 2017 DigitaliveProduction, OFF Productions, fotofever, PHOTOLUX, Atelier SHL, Tënk, EXALUX, Structures.
Dominic NAHR
Patrizia BONANZINGA
Laurence BONVIN
Pablo Ernesto PIOVANO
Rubén SALGADO ESCUDERO
Rony ZAKARIA
Hyong-Ryol BAK
View the 2016 Press Kit →
July 3rd to September 23rd, 2017
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
THE ARLES DOC’HOUSE is the third summer exhibition organized by our Foundation in the 17th-century-mansion Hotel Blain. We are commited to presenting the public with leading-edge documentary projects that are impacting, thoughtful and inspiring from our curatorial point of view - everconscious of puting forth powerful and eloquent stories that addresshumanity, social justice, and other issues of our times.
This year’s summer program examines documentary from serveral perspective: the life of a singer (Edith Piaf with Universal Music France), the gaze of our laureates (Enri Canaj and Ismail Ferdous, 2016 MRO Prize winners), the journey of Mafia (Tony Gentile presented by PhotoLux) or our newest partners Tënk and Fotofever’s selection.
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation, with the support of the City of Arle,s stands today as a cornerstone of humanist photography and film in Southern France ; defending documentary works in a unique and socially responsible perspective.
Curators Nicolas HAVETTE, Peter PFRUNDER, Dimitri BECK, Sunghee LEE.
Grand partners 2016 ProHelvetia
Partners 2016 The Swiss Foundation of Photography, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Foundation GoEun, PHOTOLUX, Fidal, Atelier SHL.
Simo AAGADI
Édouard BEAU
Laurence BONVIN
Pablo Ernesto PIOVANO
Titus SIMOENS
Ask for the 2015 Press Kit →
November 12th, 2015 to January 20th, 2016
at the 18 rue de la Calade — Arles
THERE, WHERE THE SOUND COMES FROM is the title of the exhibition, taken from Edouard Beau’s video on the Islamic state in 2014. The head of the Kurds commands his men NOT to shoot, to remain still and be patient, and to listen to where the sound of gunfire is coming from. In the darkness, sounds becomes the only references... Eyes shut, ears open, mind focused, no shooting... And of course, out of nervous stress, fear and ignorance of what’s happening, there as anywhere, men retaliate, senselessly, shooting their ammunition into the dark night.
For this second exhibition in Arles, the MRO Foundation invites you to listen to the sounds of the world, thanks to the rigorous selection of photographers and video makers, one can source these sounds and their outcomes.
With Edouard Beau, we track Irak’s early 21st century History.
With Titus Simoens we listen to the mountains in China and to what young boys are taught. With Laurence Bonvin we listen intensely to displaced communities in Capetown. With Pablo Ernesto Piovano we measure the terrible human aftermath of chemical treatments on agricultural land in Argentina, the result of fatal / lethal deals between huge agri-food firms and Argentina. While Simo Aagadi’s sculptures move us, in the here and now, with traces of migrants’ bodies rocked and tossed.Photographs, films, sound and interactive performances document those infra-sounds that fly under the threshold of media scrutiny.
These artists introduce us to men and women caught up in a world not of their choosing. The purpose of these exhibitions is not to enshrine the artists but to show steps in their work, to share their thought process and concern for our world. This is a triangular discussion involving artists, the men and women shown in the images, and us.
Curators Nicolas HAVETTE
Grand partners 2015 PHOTON Labo Photo Pro
L’ENGAGEMENT
at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
PROGRAM ASSOCIATED WITH LES RENCONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE 2024
from july 1rst to september 29th, 2024
18 rue de la Calade — Arles
L’Engagement The exhibition explores the complexity of commitment through the prism of migration, globalization and identity crises. Through the works of various artists, it raises the dilemmas of the concept of legality and the tensions of belonging. The exhibition prompts us to reflect on our own responsibility and commitment, while paying tribute to the work of reportage.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the photographic prize awarded by the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation, we pay tribute to Camille Lepage, whose talent as a photojournalist remains engraved in our memories, despite her tragic death. Her unwavering commitment to bearing witness to the world’s often little-known realities deserves to be celebrated and honored.
Commitment manifests itself in a multitude of forms, from social movements to struggles against police violence, to questioning surveillance devices. Electronic waste, or E-Waste, raises fundamental questions about the ecological and human challenges posed by trans-border waste flows. They highlight issues such as corruption and the limits of legality, and are at the heart of activism and committed artistic projects.
The exhibition also probes our personal commitment to society, the search for meaning in our lives and our actions. It reveals our passions, our desires, but also our deepest fears. The commitment is artistic, sensory and militant, as this program cannot be considered without taking into account the human and political crises currently afflicting the world.
Once again this year, Fotohaus enriches the Foundation's proposals by broadening the theme of commitment. With Beliefs and Existence, the artists propose visual answers to the fundamental existential question: how to live a human life?
Artists
Anas Aremeyaw ANAS, Chun-Yi CHANG, Muntaka CHASANT, Thaddé COMAR, Ljubiša DANILOVIĆ, Chiara DAZI, Guido GAZZILLI, Bénédicte KURZEN, Camille LEPAGE, Diego MORENO, Philippine SCHAEFER, Jun-Jieh WANG, Collectif Advantage Austria, Collectif LesAssociés, Institute Contemporary.
Guest curators Verdiana ALBANO, Anne-Marie BECKMANN, Christel BOGET, Christian JUNGWIRTH, Klaus KEHRER, Reanne LEUNING, Cornelia SIEBERT, Enrico STEFANELLI.
Curator BASILETTI Florent
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
Foundation
— for documentary photography & filmMission & Vision
Established in 2010, the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation aims to encourage committed artists whose gaze challenges us to develop a new vision of the world.
By rewarding the dedication and determination of emerging photographers and artists, the Foundation's mission is to support documentary projects that show humanity in motion and capture social, cultural, political and even ecological issues. The images challenge us to question what is sometimes overlooked or forgotten, to offer a singular vision of the world around us and to give voice to the voiceless and opportunity to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged among us — in every community in the world — to be seen and heard.
Price & Grant
Nota Bene : Due to the current situation, the prize and grant are suspended.
We are doing our utmost to reinstate them as soon as possible.
We are doing our utmost to reinstate them as soon as possible.
The Price
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation Prize aims to be awarded to one documentary photographer and to one documentary filmmaker for work that brings to light some of the world’s ignored atrocities that impact our society, with images imbued with the determination to change the world and thus awaken our collective conscience.
Each year, the recipients will be announced at our summer opening reception for the Rencontres d’Arles, France.
The Grant
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Grant is addressed to professional and emerging photographers working on a project in the field of documentary photography. Through a portfolio of 15 images, t he proposed projects submitted must address current societal issues in which we must perceive perceive the ongoing work and the intended realisation.
The laureates will receive guidance throughout the project, from its realization up to its exhibition at the Foundation.
Laureates
Laureates selected in the previous editions of the Grant and Prize by the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation’s jury.
![Mads NISSENNo Shelter from FearDisplaced Populations of Columbia2011 MRO Grant recipient]()
![Gustavo JONONOVICHRichlandOver-population of Natural Resources in Latin America2012 MRO Photography Grant laureate]()
![Kannan ARUNASALAMThe Story of OneGovernment repression, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka2013 MRO Film Grant laureate]()
![Vivek SINGHThe AftermathEthnic unrest, Western Assam2013 Photography Grant recipient]()
![Alfonso MORALA city without dreamsGovernment repression and Refugee suffering, Lebanon and Syria2014 MRO Film laureate]()
![Mohamed ALI EDDINLife of quarry workersWorkers exploitation in Minya, Egypt2014 MRO Photography Grant laureate]()
![Camille LEPAGEBattling the SelekaCollapse of Central African Republic2014 MRO Photography Prize laureate]()
![Laurence BONVINSounds of BlikkiesdorpUrban displacement in Cape Town, South Africa2015 MRO Film Grant laureate]()
![Pablo Ernesto PIOVANOThe Human costOverexploitation of Agrochemicals by Monsanto in Argentina2015 MRO Photography Grant recipient]()
![Mo YIChinese of tomorrowCost of China's growing Super Power2015 MRO Photography Prize recipient]()
![Enri CANAJThe Wind cries of WarRefugee resettlement in Germany and Greece2016 MRO Photography Grant colaureate]()
![Ismail FERDOUSAfter Rana PlazaVictims of the world's biggest industrial disaster2016 MRO Photography Grant colaureate]()
Le nid
Francesca TODDE
Residency realized between october, december 2022 and march, april 2023.
"When I arrived in Arles, I thought I would work on a project about jackdaws, small blue-eyed corvids that populate ancient cities in great numbers, nesting in the hollows of ancient walls and towers. I have been going to Arles for seven years now during the Rencontres, and every time I arrive in the city, I am greeted as I get off the train by the soft, rhythmic sound of jackdaws playing in the mistral wind. While living during my residency on the top floor of the Foundation, located in the Hôtel Blain, 18 rue de la Calade, I gradually got to know each stone, chimney, wall and door of this marvelous palace, which houses one of the finest examples of a seventh century staircase still visible in Arles. Driven by the desire to bear witness to the beauty of intimacy with a place, I began a photographic survey of the palace, during my nightly visits.The hotel, after passing through the hands of many owners, became in the 1960s an annex of a birthing clinic, the Clinique du Nid, located at the next number on the street. So there was a connection, at least nominal, between the two objects of my interest, the palace and the jackdaws, and I began to work in that direction.I began to collect the testimonies of people who were born in the Nest Clinic, or who lived in the palace, or who worked there. At the same time, I began to learn about the nesting and meeting places of the jackdaws in the area of the city.These two researches will be combined in a single project called The Nest." explains Francesca Todde.
These two researches will be combined in a single project called Le Nid.
Production in collaboration with L'Atelier du Palais, a risography printing studio in Arles.
Shivtown
Hillel Ben-Zeev Perlov
Residency realized in January and February 2023.
"The Shivtown project is about the three years I spent as a military photographer in the Shivta artillery base in the Negev desert of Israel. I was a soldier called up for obligatory service in which I carried a camera as a weapon.
In the winter of 2020, during the second lockdown, I was in Arles. While confined, I was able to do some introspective work and write about my service. The intense writing invited me to look at the negatives I had photographed at the time in the base from a new angle. In a short documentary (in progress), I try to bring these memories to life through the process of analog print production. This long process of introspection confronts me with the trauma I experienced as a soldier. I wish to question and deconstruct the image of heroism and national pride through the story of my father, who miraculously survived the Yom Kippur War, as well as an episode of sexual harassment that I experienced in Shivta and which was photographed without my knowledge.
While in Arles, during my residency at the Foundation, I continue to reactivate these memories through the historical-antique resemblance between these two territories located on either side of the Mediterranean Sea: the ancient Nabatean city of Shivta whose remains remain next to the artillery base that bears its name, and the Roman antiquities of the city of Arles. This is how I wish to approach the fragility of the geopolitics of my native country," says Hillel Ben-Zeev Perlov.
This research is the result of the duo Maïell
Art Residencies
The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation receives artists' residencies at the Foundation to develop and accompany their projects. See the previous residencies below.
JTC + Arles
Chuan Lun WU
Residency realized in June and July 2023
"JTC is a project I initiated in Tainan, Taiwan, in 2012. It has evolved from typological photography to a mixed-media installation. Replacing the usual paper prints with sublimation prints on custom-designed metal plates, as well as transposing industrial containers into elegant ceramic pots, represent the project's two main innovations.
During my residency in Arles, we produced two new types of ceramic pots locally. Attraction Terrestre skilfully fashioned common local terracotta into an industrial-style barrel, adding a precious touch of terroir style to the project. The rectangular pots, which represented an initial challenge, were made by Memento Temporï in Brittany and poterie Le Chêne Vert in Anduze, both of which demonstrated experienced craftsmanship and a willingness to take on challenges. These pots, which I thought impossible to make, became reality. Throughout the residency, I also documented the streetscape of potted plants in the La Roquette district of Arles, discovering distinct cultures of intertwined plant pots," says Chuan Lun WU.
With the support of the Centre Culturel de Taïwan in Paris, and partners: ChromaLuxe, Pacific Colour, Attraction terrestre, Le Chêne vert and Memento Temporï.
Doublure
Juline DARDE GERVAIS
Residency realized from June to July 2022.
DOUBLURE performance for the opening of the exhibition DRESS CODE. Following the residency, Juline directed the film DOUBLUNE shown at the Foundation.
Doublure
Female name
1. A person who temporarily replaces the one who should be there. 2. Fabric used to cover the intimate surface of a garment.
The performance proposed by Juline Darde Gervais questions the timeless figure of the Arlesienne through her gestural and clothing lining. The performer Nikita Goile goes in search of her, taking with her the audience of the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation.
Juline Darde Gervais is a visual artist & designer based in Paris, France. A graduate of the Arts Décoratifs de Paris in clothing design, she has enriched her practice through numerous experiences and collaborations in the performing arts and cinema. As a researcher, she explores the plastic potential of the body as a "stage body", in its capacity to deploy strong images between fantasy and abstraction.
IMAGE EDUCATION
Image education for young people young public allows to approach the photographic image in a playful way in order to initiate to the reflection on the image but also its production. It all starts with a visit of the current exhibition where the exchange is at the heart of this moment of moment of discovery then unfolds through educational workshops where it will be proposed to participants to awaken their imagination, creativity and critical thinking in relation to the themes of the exhibition programs.
The MRO Foundation contributed to the Rentrée en Images in partnership with the Rencontres d'Arles. The Foundation's team welcomed approximately 100 students per day, ranging from elementary to high school students from the region.
Mediated tour:
visit to the exhibitions of the Dress Code program, which links some forty artists proposing singular glances on the identity and the clothing in the world. For the visit, 3 to 5 exhibitions will be chosen, notably a selection on selection on rituals, masks and pagan festivals.
"Sometimes ornament, costume, scene or cult dress, clothing represents singular identities but also collective. Dress code poses the regard on this between identity and clothing, notably through the Drag Queen of New York Queen of New York, the twins in Nigeria, the voodoo rituals in Benin and Togo Togo, Zapotec women in Mexico, but also through personal photographic personal photographic investigations. Between rites and gender markers, the twenty or so the twenty or so exhibitions offer a questioning of singular and collective identities collective identities, but also on the dress as emancipation or claim"
Pedagogic workshops :
as part of the Dress Code program program, a workshop an introduction to studio photography was offered. Learn the photographer's dance of the photographer in order to find the best framing, create a team to learn how to manage learn to manage the light, know the techniques of model direction, while having the possibility to create universes around the textiles. The workshop was conducted with Juliette Larochette and Rosalie Parent, artist photographer.
Infos
Manuel-Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
18 rue de la Calade — 13200 Arles
Access hours
open everyday from 11am to 6pm
last entry 30 minutes before closing time
Full rate : 6€
Reduced rate : 4€
Unemployed visitors, large families, seniors + 65 ans years old, international artists ID, holders of the Pass de la ville d’Arles and Cezam cards, students under 26 years old.* for teachers, jobseekers and groups of 10 people or more*
Free admission:
Pass Rencontres d’Arles, Arlésiens, children under 18, disabled visitors, ICOM members, press card, tour guides, curators, journalists, students and teachers in art*
* Reductions will be granted upon presentation of a proof of less than 3 months.
Team
Dr. Manuel RIVERA-ORTIZ
— President & FounderThe documentary photography of Manuel Rivera-Ortiz focuses on hardship and hope in some of the world's impoverished countries and is a testament to the life he experienced growing up in the barrios of Guayama, Puerto Rico. His work highlights the presence of hope in adversity and the dignity of people living in distress that he captures in many corners of the world.
After leaving Puerto Rico, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz moved with his family to Holyoke, Massachusetts, where he attended the Lawrence Elementary School of Journalism. While living there, he picked up the camera for the first time at Springfield College. In 2010, he opened the Foundation for Documentary Photography and Film.
André PFANNER
— Vice PresidentFlorent BASILETTI
— DirectorGraduate of the École nationale supérieure de photographie d'Arles, Florent Basiletti has developed a curatorial work through various exhibitions such as Modernité des passions, WIP17, WIP19, and coordinates cultural actions such as La Kabine and Arles contemporain. In 2021, he takes up the artistic direction of the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for the Echos Système program.
In parallel, his artistic practice consists of studying the phenomenon of pteridomania or fern fever, an obsessive infatuation with ferns from the Victorian era. Florent Basiletti develops a research on our rapport with the image by exploring the idea of biophotography and the creation of living images, notably within the laboratory La Cellule.
Charles HENNIKER-HEATON
— PartnershipsJustine AYZAC
— Exhibition coordinatorEmmanuel APEDJINOU
— Administrative assistantThis website was made by Camille GAJATE
Press
For any queries, please contact us — info@mrofoundation.org
Find here our communication kits — Press Kit — Press Review
For any other information, please contact our press officer — Nathalie DRAN
Partners 2024
Thanks to our team, our artists, our curators and, in particular, to the Rencontres d'Arles and our partners 2024.
