abbaye de jumièges >>> centre d’art contemporain de la matmut - Daniel Havis, saint-pierre-de-varengeville >>> bibliothèque alexis de tocqueville, caen >>> musée des beaux-arts de rouen >>>les pêcheries, musée de fécamp >>>
A photographic journey in Normandy
danemark>>estonie>>finlande >>islande >>norvège >>suède
General commission of the project
Gabriel Bauret and assistant Chantal Bauret
Editorial secretary of the magazine Zoom from 1980 to 1984. Editor in chief of the magazine Camera International until 1993. Today, he mounts exhibitions in France (the Rencontres d’Arles, the European House of Photography, the Dutch Institute, the Italian Cultural Institute, The House of Latin America in Paris, the Arab World Institute…) and abroad (Germany, Great-Britain, Spain, The USA, Greece, Italy, Japan? Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Switzerland). He has also written books on photography and prefaced numerous monographs (among others for the following: Editions du Chêne, La Martinière, Assouline, Gallimard, Actes Sud, Filigranes…). The artistic representative of the Mois de la Photo in Paris in 2006, he regularly organizes exhibits within the frame of this happening. Artistic co-director of the Transphotographiques in Lille in 2010 and 2011. Has recently worked on various and different pieces by Shoji Ueda, Peter Knapp, Lucien Clergue, Roman Cieslewicz, Daido Moriyama, Giorgia Fiorio, Sacha, Gabriele Basilico, Bernard Plossu, or Jesse A. Fernández. Curator of an exhibition concerning “The Great War Remembered” for the Mois de la Photo in 2014 and in 2015 for the First Biennal of the contemporary Arab world for the MEP and the IMA (an assignment renewed in 2017). Supervises a photographic mission on the heritage of the city of Reims. (2016) as well as on the river Seine, for the Mois de la Photo of Greater Paris (April 2017). Consultant for the Award in Photography of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation.
PRESIDENCY OF THE ASSOCIATION
Sonja Martinsson Uppman worked in the Museum of Modern Arts in Stockholm (Moderna Museet) with Pontus Hulten before the latter was appointed the first curator of the Modern art museum at the Pompidou Centre (Paris). In the early years of the seventies, she left Sweden for Latin America and was living in Chili at the time of the political coup in September 1973. She worked then as a diplomat and participated in the evacuation towards Sweden of endangered persons. She left Chili and worked for Havana Cuba Radio.; and then, she returned to Sweden. She held several positions linked to cultural and international relations. In 1994, she was appointed Director of the Swedish Cultural Center in Paris, a position she occupied for 8 years. From 1998 to 2004, she was also the president of the National Foundation of Plastic Arts in Sweden. Today, she lives in Paris.
Communication, edition et Partenariats
Benoît Eliot, editor, graphist and photographer was special adviser for the “Normandy Impressionist” festival in 2016. Over the past twenty years he has also been involved with most of the museums and cultural centers in Normandy. After co-directing for 15 years the editions Point de vues, in 2016 he created “OCTOPUS”, a company dealing with edition, graphical design and digital mediation.
Repérages et coordination
Véronique Mange was until 2015 in charge of exhibitions (programming and implementation) for the department of Seine-Maritime.
Jumieges Abbey
Founded in 654 by Saint Philibert with the blessing of King Clovis II and Queen Bathild, Jumièges Abbey soon prospered.
It fell into disuse for some time following the Viking raids, but from 940 onwards became one of the great centres of wisdom during the religious and cultural renaissance in Normandy. The abbey survived the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion before eventually being sold off as a 'national asset' during the French Revolution as a stone quarry and subsequently became no more than a ruin.
It was purchased by the government in 1946 and ownership was transferred to the Département de la Seine-Maritime in 2007. Every year, it receives approximately 80,000 visitors from all over the world.
Two photographers, Olivier Verley and Bernard Plossu, were asked to produce series of photographs with a personalised view on the abbey and which were exhibited in 2009 and 2012.
In spring 2013, the former abbots' residence, the Logis abbatial, was opened to the public.
The Département de la Seine-Maritime have hosted numerous prestigious exhibitions here as part of their ongoing policy of supporting the visual arts. These include: “En/quête d'identité”, in partnership with la Maison européene de la photographie, “Paysage”, by Henri Cartier-Bresson and “Portrait de la France en vacances”, both organised in partnership with MAGNUM Photos, as well as Jean Gaumy’s “La tentation du paysage” and Gabriele Basilico’s “Beirut 1991”. The abbey's magnificent lapidary collection is also displayed here as a way of creating a dialogue between contemporary creativity and these important examples of Medieval art.
MATMUT CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
Situated 20 minutes from Rouen in Saint-Pierre-de-Varengeville, Matmut’s contemporary art centre (CAC) annually hosts four exhibitions by artists of both national and international standing.
The CAC has become over time a reference point for the promotion of photography, as well as contemporary art in general. It endeavours to produce or co-produce photography exhibitions furthering the diversity and extreme vivacity of the current artistic scene.
To this end, following on from exhibitions by Jean Gaumy, Charles Freger and Rune Guneriussen the work of Florence Chevallier, Nils Udo, Denis Darzacq and Bae Bien-U will be displayed.
City of Duclair
In Duclair, the 500 metres of quayside provide a stopover for the numerous cruise ships that ply the Seine during the fair-weather months. Its atmosphere resembles that of a port, with the continual to and fro of the ferry across the river. Every summer from the end of June onwards, cruise ship passengers from France and abroad are greeted by an exhibition made up of around fifty large format panels placed along the quayside. Their theme is always linked in some way to seafaring or the region's landscape. This is why 2016's exhibition was organised in partnership with the French Lines company, to recount life aboard the transatlantic liners in their heyday. During the summer of 2017, aerial photography was featured, with the exhibition "Vol au-dessous du littoral de Normandie" (tr: A flight over Normandy's coastline) by the specialist photographer, Jérôme Houyvet.
Réunion des musées métropolitains
For some time, le musée des Beaux-arts in Rouen has been striving to encourage a dialogue between its own collection and the art of today. Since 2012, a number of artists have been invited, either for solo exhibitions or as part of the “Temps des collections”exhibition series (Pierre Buraglio, Véra Molnar, François Morellet, Bertrand Gadenne, Vladimir Skoda, Gilles Marrey & Simon Nicais).
In 2016, The creation of la Réunion des Musées Métropolitains, the consolidation of all the city’s public museums, saw the emergence of a new contemporary cultural event: “La Ronde” which opens the doors to new, young talent and to internationally renowned artists alike (Ann Veronica Janssens, Georges Adéagbo, Christian Jaccard). Live art's presence will be felt even more in the 2018 programme with a large exhibition from FRAC Normandie Rouen’s collection contrasting with the museums' more traditional art. Added to this will be two artists in residence (Sara Bran, le musée Le Secq des Tournelles and Annica Karlsson Rixon, le musée des Beaux-arts) and a season dedicated to antique and contemporary sketches (Gilgian Gelzer, Jérôme Zonder, Sarkis).
MUMA, André Malraux Museum of Modern Art
In the past 15 years, MuMa, le musée d’art moderne André Malraux, has built up a collection of nearly 350 photographs and video images. The greater part are of Le Havre itself, its post-war reconstruction and its continuing development and transformation. These provide a contemporary addition to the museum's collection of 19th century painters, including Eugène Boudin, Camille Pissarro and Raoul Dufy, who themselves addressed the portrayal of a changing environment.
From 1947 onwards, the reconstruction of Le Havre was recorded in several photographic ventures, continuing on well after rebuilding was finished. Undertaken by photographers often strangers to Le Havre (e.g. Lucien Hervé in 1956, Gabriele Basilico in 2004), they assisted in promoting the image of a beautiful, modern city. They also helped to reconcile the local population with the past and to accept the city’s new, modern image. MuMa itself has continued this tradition by commissioning photographs, most notably in 2005, when the town centre, which was rebuilt by architect Auguste Perret, was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
In parallel, the museum is enlarging its collection of photographs questioning the notion of landscape and which closely relate to its collection of paintings (Thibaut Cuisset, Véronique Ellena, Stéphane Couturi).
MuMa regularly provides a extensive programme of contemporary photography exhibitions (Bernard Plossu in 2015, Jacqueline Salmon in 2016) and “Comme une histoire... Le Havre” will be presenting a significant part of the museum's photographic collection until the 18th March 2018.
The Swedish Institute
The Swedish Institute in Paris is Sweden's only overseas cultural centre. It promotes Swedish culture with a multi-disciplined, essentially contemporary programme including plastic arts, design, cinema, music and literature. They also have a permanent art exhibition retracing Franco-Swedish relations over the last few centuries.
The courtyard and garden are open to the public and some of the institutes's events take place here: the summer library, open air cinema, music festival, contemporary art installations and outdoor exhibitions. Through their continuing work with French and Swedish cultural organisations, the Swedish Institute endeavours to address the issues facing tomorrow's society through its events programme, seminars, conferences and debates. It aims to be a platform for an inter-cultural exchange that promotes openness and understanding of others.