The world's most respected photo festival continues to seek new voices, says director Christoph Wiesner. "A festival is an ever-evolving work: Beneath the Surface – the theme of this 55th edition – is in search of multiple voices and alternative narratives," states Christoph Wiesner, director of Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles.
Located in southern France, half of Arles’ program is dedicated to artists of French origin or those working in France, including Vasantha Yogananthan, Nicolas Floc’h, and Nhu Xuan Hua. However, this year the festival also highlights another focus with four Japanese exhibitions. The group exhibition Reflection – 11/03/11 highlights how a magnitude nine earthquake, one of the strongest ever recorded, struck Japan's northeastern coast 13 years ago, causing a tsunami that wiped out everything up to 10 km inland. Some photographers witnessed the disaster by documenting the destruction and the reconstruction efforts.
A second exhibition highlights the ama (Japanese ‘women of the sea’) who practice the ancient craft of free-diving for seaweed. Uraguchi Kusukazu spent over thirty years documenting the ama in his region, capturing portraits, beach scenes, and summer festivals. On a different scale, Belongings focuses on Ishiuchi Miyako’s posthumous examination of her mother’s belongings, cataloging items such as shirts, dentures, lipsticks, and shoes as a final act of intimacy with her deceased parent. Finally, the group exhibition I’m So Happy You Are Here addresses critical gender gaps in the history of photography, from the 1950s to today, featuring 25 female photographers from various generations.
The festival also extends to other parts of the world. Rajesh Vora’s fixation on vernacular architecture in Punjab focuses on the homes of diasporic, non-resident Indians who began building houses in villages in the late 1970s. El Grupo de Cali, active in the 1970s and 1980s in Colombia, reveals a counter-cultural perspective infused with gothic references to vampirism. Mi Yo’s solo show celebrates the experimental style of the self-taught Chinese photographer, who often ignored the viewfinder in favor of randomly shifting the camera.
Beirutopia examines the various sociopolitical realities of Lebanon, glimpsing the city’s transformation through seven works produced by Randa Mirza between 2000 and 2022. Matthieu Nicol's Fashion Army explores a recently declassified photo archive from the US military, covering a period from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, presenting prototypes of uniforms and equipment for soldiers, including trench coats and camouflage patterns.
There are also extraordinary exhibitions by renowned names, including a retrospective of Mary Ellen Mark recently shown at C/O Berlin and the work of Cristina de Middel examining migration between the US and Mexico. Sophie Calle uses the damp underground space of the Cryptoportiques to display images damaged by mold in her storage unit. The 2024 Louis Roederer Discovery Award, a judge of emerging talents, is curated this year by Audrey Illouz and features artists from France, Turkey, Israel, and South Africa.
Beyond Arles, the broader program throughout Provence includes Alassan Diawara and Zineb Sedira in a joint exhibition at the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, dedicated to French families and youth, and Stephen Shames’ exhibition on female Black Panthers at the Centre de la Photographie de Mougins.
Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles will be held at various venues across the city from July 1 to September 29, 2024.