The Institute at the Rencontres d’Arles 2025
This summer, the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles presents, among some sixty exhibitions, Chambre 207 by Jean-Michel André and elles obliquent elles obstinent elles tempêtent by Agnès Geoffray and Vanessa Desclaux, both of which have benefited from various forms of support from the Institut pour la Photographie.
The programming of these exhibitions in Arles is an opportunity for the Institute to re-emphasise the initiatives it has been developing since 2019 to support research and creation and to promote photographic culture to a wide audience.
Chambre 207 — Jean-Michel André
Chambre 207 was exhibited from 16 October 2024 to 2 February 2025 at the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse (Lille) as part of the Institut pour la Photographie’s off-site program. Co-produced by the Institute and the Centre Méditerranéen de la Photographie in Bastia, where it will be shown in autumn 2025, the exhibition is being presented for the second time at the Espace Croisière during the 56th edition of the Rencontres d’Arles festival.
Born in Nantes in 1976, photographer Jean-Michel André lives and works between the Hauts-de-France and the Camargue.
Since graduating from the École des Gobelins in 2000, he has offered a political and poetic vision of the territory, questioning its boundaries, memory and evolution.
Since 2019, following his participation in the first Openfolio organised by the Institute pour la photographie with his project Borders, a close collaboration has begun with him. It was particularly in the context of educational and transmission projects that the Institute began working with the artist.
For more than two years, the Institute has been following one of its most personal photographic projects, Chambre 207. The individualised artistic support provided by Anne Lacoste, director, and the scenography designed by the Institute’s production department have enabled this unique project to come to life in the form of an exhibition. During its first presentation in Lille, the exhibition welcomed more than 31,000 visitors.
↘︎ From 7 July to 5 October 2025
↘︎ Croisière, Arles
elles obliquent elles obstinent elles tempêtent — Agnès Geoffray
Curator : Vanessa Desclaux
Before becoming a performance lecture and then an exhibition presented at the Commanderie Sainte-Luce during the Rencontres d’Arles, elles obliquent elles obstinent elles tempêtent (they deviate, they persist, they rage) by artist Agnès Geoffray and curator and art critic Vanessa Desclaux was a research project conducted on the institutional archives of the Cadillac, Doullens, and Clermont de l’Oise, public institutions for the placement of minor girls between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century.
Originally titled Des corps écrits (Written Bodies), it was awarded the 5th edition of the Institute’s Research and Creation Grant in 2023, along with three other projects, on the theme of Stories We Tell, Stories We Show: Photo-Textual Strategies in the Renewal of Narrative Forms.
As part of their participation in this support program, Agnès Geoffray and Vanessa Desclaux had the opportunity to present their project to students at La Cambre (Brussels) as part of the Meeting Point program of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels, as well as at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, in discussion with Philippe Artières, French historian, as part of the annual seminar coordinated by Christian Joschke, professor and art historian.
During the 5th anniversary of the Institute for Photography Grant, celebrated at the Jeu de Paume in May 2024, Agnès Geoffray and Vanessa Desclaux presented elles obliquent elles obstinent elles tempêtent in the form of a performance lecture.
↘︎ July 7 to September 21, 2025
↘︎ Commanderie Sainte-Luce, Arles