Photo Encounters: Arles is bubbling and vibrant

The 2025 edition of the Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles is no exception, with a unique program whose curators have clearly understood the urgent need to showcase and allow women to express themselves. This edition walks a tight, powerful line. Like the acrobats of the Gratte Ciel company, who deliver a fragile and poetic performance above the audience on the festival's opening night. Then Nan Goldin, the great American photographer and diva of a whole generation of young photographers, sets the tone by stepping onto the stage of the ancient theater to receive the Women in Motion Award for Photography-Kering. She laughs at receiving this award, even though she can barely walk anymore, and warns us: "Stay around, I have a surprise."

A terrible wind blows through the theater. The acrobat almost falls. The son of Sebastião Salgado, the great Franco-Brazilian photographer who passed away last May, emotionally reminds us of his father's commitment. Then Nan Goldin returns to the stage, joined by the writer Edouard Louis. A change of atmosphere. Silence is requested. Behind them, terrible images of the Palestinian territory ravaged by the conflict that has been going on for many months. The photographer and the writer read a text denouncing the war waged in Gaza by Israel and calling for action. "Don't applaud, act." Cries of anger erupt. Slogans of "Free Gaza" explode, chanted by the crowd. Unlike a bourgeois, easygoing, and consensual edition, the festival can begin.

Committed women

This year's Rencontres is largely focused on engagement and taking a stand. Amateur photographers and international artists turn their gaze on invisible populations across the world, from Australia to Brazil, from the Caribbean to North America, bearing witness in particular to the still-open scars of colonization. Women are in the spotlight. And more broadly, a questioning of relationships of domination and the archetypes and violence of gender roles. Thus, Camille Lévèque, in her search for the father, speaks of family. Her work blends the intimate and the universal. She plays at finding the photos that show the absence of her own father. In this violent and cathartic game, it is the shackles of the mononuclear family that explodes.

In the same vein, we find the very beautiful exhibition of American photographer Erica Lennard, with The Women, The Sisters at the Espace Van-Gogh and magnificent vintage prints. And that of Agnès Geoffray They Oblique, They Obstinate, They Storm at the Commanderie Sainte-Luce.

While Erica Lennard offers a contemplative and dreamlike ode under the sign of sisterhood, Agnès Goeffray works on the dissident bodies of rebellious girls based on research on correctional institutions for young minors from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

At the time (and perhaps still today…), girls were imprisoned for who they were, and boys for what they did. Based on a reflection by the philosopher Elsa Dorlin, "female violence is always considered obscene", Agnès Geoffray's exhibition presents a unique collection of works (photos and texts) with female portraits who face, or sometimes resist by fleeing, to escape the violence of confinement.

The world seen by sensitive artists

Thought in motion is still expressed at the Maison des Peintres with Magma dans l'Ocean by Brandon Gercara. The Reunion Island artist takes over the Piton de la Fournaise, the telluric symbol of the island. A very beautiful exhibition where we think back to the American author Judith Butler: "Queer is not an identity, it is a way of life that opposes heteronormality. It is a political and subversive anchoring of being in the world. "We are told of a decolonial feminism, of the gender binarity with the volcano which becomes the scene of a political affirmation of "kwir" identities.

Lila Neutre, Danse avec les cendres (faire feu) at the Maison des peintres, highlights two photographic and textual ensembles around the practice of twerking and voguing. Twerk Nation and The Rest is Drag invest dance and partying as grounds for struggle that are at once popular, aesthetic, and political. Invoking fire allows us to reverse the violence that still persists before our eyes today, against LGBTQIA+ communities, racialized people, and people in precarious situations.

A must-see at the Saint-Blaise church, Nan Goldin unveils with The Stendhal Syndrome, a slideshow comparing images of masterpieces of classical, Renaissance and Baroque art with portraits of loved ones and her loves.

This year again, images resist the temptation to make them say things they don't mean in a period when history is constantly being rewritten or transformed. Photographers are also there to bear witness and offer their opinion on the state of the world.

The 56th edition of the Rencontres d'Arles offers 47 exhibitions until October 5, from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Single admission costs from €4.50 to €15. Day passes (€35) or all exhibitions (€42).