Arpenter, photographier la Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Arpenter, photographier la Nouvelle-Aquitaine (or “Roaming, photographing the Nouvelle-Aquitaine” in English),  depicts the “here and now” of today’s world. Through a selection of more than 150 photographs and 10 essays, it paints a vivid portrait of France’s largest region, the Aquitaine. As Jérôme Fourquet points out in the preface of the book, the Aquitaine can be understood as an allegory for the country as a whole. “Arpenter” touches upon vital contemporary issues, such as the evolution of the rural world, the development of suburban areas, the essential role played by associations in the face of growing metropolisation, ecological upheavals, migration and the many aspirations of the youth. The 9 photographers involved in the project aimed to grasp precisely what’s “beyond the postcard”: their documentative and poetic images are “snapshots” of life that anyone and everyone can identify with.

This project was initiated in 2022 by the Fonds régional d’art contemporain (FRAC) of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It follows the footsteps of the “Mission héliographique” of 1851 and the “Mission photographique” of the DATAR of 1984, which was the first visual and scientific inventory of France. To give an account of this relatively young administrative region, which saw the day in 2015, a committee of scientific experts proposed 9 major themes for photographers to work on. This body of work reveals the creative potential which resulted from this intense collaboration between regional experts and photographers. Moreover, it questions the role of photography as a medium and the meaning of photographic commissions in an increasingly fluid world. Above all, it captures the encounter of an area with its inhabitants.