Natures in Cities " exhibition
Photographs by Chantal AURIOL, Jocelyn BANABERA, Gwenaëlle BOURRIAUD , Marcelle BOYER, Laurence CHARRIÉ, Christian COITE, Frédéric DESCHAMPS and Fabrice JURQUET
from October 16, 2024 to January 31, 2025
Meet the artists:
Monday, November 25, 2024 at 6 p.m.
Cultural space (CRD) at the Nîmes site
The Groupe de Recherche Regards sur la Ville is a free collective of photographers within the NegPos association.
They explore Nîmes and its suburbs around an annual theme, with an artistic and documentary approach.
Their themes are linked to the transformation of the city. Each year, an exhibition and the publication of a catalog mark the milestones of their research.
The Regards sur la Ville 2024 research group, the famous photographic mission that goes back to the origins of NegPos Centre d'art et de photographie de Nîmes, made up as always of photographers from Nîmes and the department, is taking the opportunity of this 2nd edition of Natures en ville to reveal the place of plants in the urban environment. Humanity's attachment to this link with its "natural" context, even if it seems incidental, also demonstrates its preoccupation with reconsidering it. Tamed, instrumentalized, improbable backdrops, these urban natures are both present and absent. As if on stand-by, they seem to bide their time. From the captive plants in our windows and balconies, to those making their way into the walls and floors of our cities, to the hundred-year-old trees that populate our Nîmes boulevards, without which we couldn't survive the relentless heat of summer, from intimate spaces such as the Protestant cemetery to the amenities and other vegetated decor of the new temples to consumerism that have sprung up to the south of the city, devouring farmland that could one day be lost to us, plants seem to be constantly calling us back.
Despite the scorn of urban planners and the destructive assaults of politicians seemingly unaware of their importance, trees and their companions in urban misfortune resist. Better still, lurking in our subconscious, they are ready to reclaim their rightful place as soon as the right moment arises!
Patrice Loubon Director of Les Villes Invisibles Festival
NegPos Centre d'art et de photographie de Nîmes
