The restitution of a bold photographic commission
Arouse sensitive, multiple and offbeat gazes on a territory in full transformation, invite artists to tell their story and their perception of the changes in Greater Paris: this is the ambition of the national commission Regards du Grand Paris. Carried out by the Ateliers Médicis and the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), this commission was inspired by the DATAR, which entrusted photographers with the mission of representing the French landscape of the 1980s. Six photographers a year, for ten years, feed the new urban and social representations of the Paris metropolis. Halfway through the commission, this work brings together, in a first volume, the thirty-five projects carried out in five years, which he exhibits according to various methods developed in collaboration with the artists.
Aurore Bagarry follows the paths of the water in the Paris basin and identifies the traces left by the ancient oceans, Raphaël Dallaporta flies over Greater Paris from the top of the control and telecommunications towers, Karim Kal, for his part, photographs the landscapes abandoned along the RER D, Lucie Jean shares the last leisure moments of bathers in a lake destined to become a site for the Olympic Games, Marion Poussier goes to meet the people who “inhabit” the quays of the Canal Saint-Denis, Anne- Lise Seusse, meanwhile, follows the movement of objects in the wake of biffins…
In her texts, Magali Nachtergael brings her unique perspective to each of the projects. Anne de Mondenard’s introductory contribution places Regards du Grand Paris in the history of public photographic commissions. Also invited to contribute to this work, in the form of a carte blanche, Romain Bertrand, Meriem Chabani, Emanuele Coccia, Kaoutar Harchi as well as Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes and Axelle Grégoire.
With the works of Camille Ayme, Julie Balagué, Aurore Bagarry, Sylvain Couzinet-Jacques, Raphaël Dallaporta, Hannah Darabi et Benoît Grimbert, Gabriel Desplanque, Mathias Depardon et Guillaume Perrier, Alassan Diawara, Patrizia Di Fiore, Sylvain Gouraud, Julien Guinand, Gilberto Güiza-Rojas, Lucie Jean, Karim Kal, Mana Kikuta, Assia Labbas, Lucas Leglise, Geoffroy Mathieu, Olivier Menanteau, Francis Morandini, Baudouin Mouanda, Khalil Nemmaoui, Marion Poussier, Marie Quéau, Maxence Rifflet, Sandra Rocha, Po Sim Sambath, Luise Schröder, Alexandra Serrano et Simon Pochet, Anne-Lise Seusse, Bertrand Stofleth, Zhao Sun, Chenxin Tang, Rebecca Topakian.
The graphic design of the book was produced by Agnès Dahan Studio. The cover photo is by Alassan Diawara.
REGARDS DU GRAND PARIS
Commande photographique nationale 2016-2021
- Coedition Textuel, Centre national des arts plastiques and Ateliers Médicis with the support of ADAGP
- 21,5 x 29 cm, 272 pages, 45 €
- ISBN : 2845979010
- Available from 15 juin 2022