What went down at "Les Rencontres D’Arles" festival

Last week, the charming city of Arles in the south of France became the epicenter of the photography world as over 20,000 professionals and art enthusiasts gathered for the opening week of the 55th edition of Les Rencontres D’Arles photo festival. The festival featured forty-one exhibitions spread across the city, complemented by events, talks, and performances, bringing the city to life with a diverse showcase of over 196 artists. Highlights included the personal yet political work of Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako, who won the Kering Women in Motion Award, and Cristina De Middel's insightful exploration of immigration issues in the United States, among numerous other talented contributors. Christoph Wiesner, director and deputy director of Les Rencontres d'Arles, remarked, “20,000 professionals and enthusiasts gathered in Arles. Never before have the Rencontres d'Arles welcomed so many festival goers during its opening week; this is the success of photographers and artists, of photography in all its diversity and multiplicity, representing a society that is open to the world. It's also confirmation that festivals are more than ever places where people can share, come together and meet. We are delighted with all the initiatives that have made this opening week a collective success. We would like to reassert the values of the festival, which supports creativity, freedom of expression, otherness, multiple viewpoints and humanism.”

The festival also highlighted the BMW Art Makers programme, featuring the innovative project The Green Ray by the winning duo, artist Mustapha Azeroual and curator Marjolaine Lévy. This immersive exhibition extended Azeroual's photographic practice, focusing on abstract images that capture light and color. The unique, previously unpublished images documented the colors of the sky at sunrise and sunset across various oceans—Arctic, Indian, Pacific, and Mediterranean—areas Azeroual had never explored before.

“We are delighted to be the winners of the BMW Art Makers programme, both because it's a project that combines our shared reflections on narrative abstraction and because it's also an exhibition based on a close collaboration between artist and curator, which is quite rare, from the writing of the project to its production. Finally, the BMW ART MAKERS programme, with its focus on contemporary environmental and social issues, is the ideal context for us to bring our project ‘The Green Ray’ to a successful conclusion, an installation that is firmly rooted in the issues of our time and offers the public a unique immersive experience,” said Azeroual and Lévy.

 The Green Ray aligns with the BMW Group's environmental strategy, aiming to reduce the impact of its activities. By delegating photography to communities of sailors to limit travel, collaborating with BMW Group designers on recyclable furniture, and creating scenographic structures for future reuse, the project embodies innovation and commitment. This installation, along with much more, can be experienced at Les Rencontres d’Arles until September 29.