The territory is dotted with places dedicated to photography. From Douchy-les-Mines, in the North, to Arles, in Bouches-du-Rhône, via Chalon-sur-Saône, in Saône-et-Loire, travel to discover five essential institutions.
The North Star
CRP Hauts-de-France, in Douchy-les-Mines (North)
Paris, rue Henri-Barbusse (1979), by Denis Roche (1937-2015). The old Douchy post office houses the CRP Hauts-de-France.
Denis Roche/Vincent Everats
In the heart of Valenciennois, a land of working-class tradition, in the small town of Douchy-les-Mines, the Regional Photography Center (CRP) has constituted a treasure. With one of the most beautiful collections in France (nearly 10,000 photos) and an art library where individuals, businesses and communities can borrow, among other sumptuous works, the works of Robert Doisneau, Sabine Weiss or Martin Parr, the Hauts de France art center has built a reputation for excellence over the years.
The beautiful story begins at the very beginning of the 1980s. In the wake of the decentralization desired by François Mitterrand and under the leadership of an enthusiast, Pierre Devin, the small photo club of the Usinor steel factory will metamorphose into a major artistic center. In 1986, it took up permanent residence in the premises of the old post office, in Douchy. Growing up is one thing, but building up such a large body of work is another matter. An ordering policy will largely provide for this. At the head of the CRP since 2021, Audrey Hoareau quickly takes stock of the place and strives to extend this work of artist residencies and commissions “so that the content does not remain frozen in time”.
Anchored in its territory, the CRP also continues to carry out an educational mission and maintain a strong link with the population of the region, particularly towards young audiences. Partnerships and collaborations are also continuing with private, associative or public structures in the region, with a happy record of 50,000 visitors last year for the collection outside the walls. In 2027, to bring the bicentenary of photography to a worthy close, the team is mobilizing for a major exhibition and a new digital tool to “show the 10,000 photos in the collection”.
The place of photography
Jeu de Paume, in Paris
Madeleine de Sinéty (1960), from the exhibition “Madeleine de Sinéty, une vie”. The entrance to the Jeu de Paume, in the Tuileries gardens, in Paris.
Author unknown/Nicolas Krief
For those who love photography, Paris is a party. In addition to the Henri-Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Le Bal or the European House of Photography (MEP), galleries and festivals are flourishing in the capital. The Jeu de Paume, “one of the most beautiful exhibition venues”, for its director, Quentin Bajac, plays the leading roles. Its construction, in 1862, was undertaken to accommodate the tennis courts displaced by the construction of the Palais Garnier. In turn dedicated to sports, then dedicated to storing works of art looted by the Nazis, the place gained, after the Second World War, its vocation as a place of culture.
It has been fully devoted to photography since 2004, the result of a merger between the National Center of Photography, the Photographic Heritage and the National Gallery of the Palm Game. Photography “remains our core business”, recognizes its director, and the growing success of the exhibitions attests, according to him, to “the thirst for culture of the French public for whom photography is an accessible, democratic and popular language”.
Another success, the exhibitions relocated to the Château de Tours, since 2010, have won over their audience and what looked like “a marriage of circumstance” quickly transformed into a more serious story, as success was quickly achieved. The same exposure can thus travel from site to site. Building on the laudatory report from the Court of Auditors, Quentin Bajac hopes to develop other partnerships in the region. In the meantime, the center is improving its cultural offerings, its cinema room, its conferences, its online courses, and even its richly stocked bookstore at the entrance to the museum.
The keeper of history
Nicéphore-Niépce Museum, in Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire)
Photographic room designed by Nicéphore Niépce, circa 1820. Entrance to the Nicéphore-Niépce Museum, in Chalon-sur-Saône.
Patrice Josserand/Christelle Ferreira
From the window of his house in Saint-Loup-de-Varenne, near Chalon-sur-Saône, Joseph Niépce, nicknamed Nicéphore, in homage to the Byzantine saint defender of images against the iconoclasts, succeeded for the first time, in 1826 or 1827 (history still hesitates), to permanently fix a photograph, Le Point de vue du Gras, thanks to the photosensitive properties of Judean bitumen mixed with gasoline lavender. Not far from there, on the banks of the Saône, a few steps from the proud statue honoring the fame of Chalon-sur-Saône, the Nicéphore-Niépce Museum has occupied its quarters since 1974.
Focused on history, the museum holds, within its walls, nearly 5 million photos, exceptional funds, such as this Russian set including very beautiful prints by the Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko. It also has 8,000 cameras of all ages and an extraordinary library, exclusively devoted to photography. Brigitte Maurice-Chabard, the director, fully assumes “the historical responsibility of the place”.
The events to come throughout the bicentenary year attest to this: while the main exhibition will be dedicated, from February 2027, to Niépce himself, with a host of exceptional documents, it will be supplemented by a second, devoted to the pioneers of Chalon photography between 1845 and 1860. If the team from the Chalon institution, supported by the Society of Friends of the Museum, very involved for years, gives body and soul to promote this exceptional heritage and educate the eyes of the youngest, the antiphon of a new conservation space, even of a city of photography, has resonated at the gates of the city for a long time. “The idea has not been abandoned,” according to the director, and the old hospital could adequately accommodate the project of a large museum. It remains to convince the mayor of the city, in office since 2014, that the bicentenary of photography would be the perfect opportunity to finally announce the culmination of a project that has been under study for too long.
The surprise guest
Contemporary Art Museum of Montélimar (Drôme)
On the left: Japan, Festival in Kyoto (1964), from the exhibition “Nicolas Bouvier, voyages au Levant”. Top: The exterior of the MAC in Montélimar. Bottom: Detail of the exhibition “William Klein, Play, Play, Play”, in 2024.
Estate of Nicolas Bouvier/MAC Montélimar/MAC Montélimar
On this diagonal of images, from north to south of France, we sometimes come across unexpected places and the place offered to photography for three years at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in Montélimar is one of these happy surprises. “The MAC of Montélimar must be understood as a place of intervals, on the way to Arles,” summarizes Pierre Sapet, responsible for the cultural development of the Montélimar agglomeration. Inexhaustible, he extols the advantages of this easily accessible medium-sized town, where everything can be done on foot, lending itself wonderfully to “cultural cabotage”. If the formula is pleasant, it is no less true that, in a museum where graphic and pictorial arts reign, the idea of photography immediately won over its audience. After William Klein, whose universe will always remain linked to painting, for the first exhibition, then the very spectacular planetary exploration with Sebastiao Salgado in 2025, “the challenge, for us, is to tell a different story each time,” recalls Pierre Sapet.
It is a challenge once again brilliantly met this year with an attractive ensemble dedicated to the travel writer and photographer Nicolas Bouvier, who, according to Aurore Alcalay, head of department at the MAC, “fits quite naturally into our territory”, where the Literary Cafés and Présence(s) Photographie festivals have been recognized cultural events for many years. With the freedom of those who know where they are going, the museum teams have chosen to favor the alternation of major figures, in order to find coherence and meaning. This strategy met, after two editions, with dazzling success. The first weeks of opening of the Bouvier exhibition bode, once again, great public enthusiasm.
Forever the first
Photography meetings, in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône)
Exhibition in the deconsecrated Sainte-Anne church, in Arles.
Lyne Thevenon
What a story that is that of the Arles Photography Meetings! Created in 1970 by the will of a trio of aesthetes: Michel Tournier, writer, Jean-Maurice Rouquette, historian, and Lucien Clergue, photographer. This subtle alchemy will give birth to what will become the largest photo event in the world. However, it was not the few hundred visitors to this first edition who predicted the best. The festival has grown, it has experienced ups and downs, quarrels and moments of grace. In 1982, Arles also saw the creation of a national art school entirely dedicated to photography, ENSP Arles, today internationally recognized.
Since 2021, the Luma foundation and the Parc des workshops wanted by Maja Hoffmann have accompanied the Meetings with high-profile exhibitions. Today, the director of the festival, Christoph Wiesner, in place since 2020, denies nothing of this story. On the contrary, he claims to be part of the continuity of those who, before him, like François Hébel or Sam Stourdzé, “decompartmentalized the world of images”, opening it to cinema, architecture, performance or music. They have contributed to the evolution of this essential monument of photography, a giant which continues to grow if we consider the exponential increase in attendance over the past twenty years, up to 175,000 visitors in 2025. Of course, “the festival also largely provided for the recognition of photography in France” in the 1980s, at a time when “our relationship with the image changed”. If, for him, “the Rencontres remains a general public festival”, he is keen to preserve a variety of approaches where the historical, the heritage and the experimental coexist. An alchemy that has made the Rencontres successful for many years.
