The ordinary, the common, the insignificant \u2013 there\u2019s nothing more authentic and more rooted in our day-to-day lives. Often with minimal staging, photographers frame a dull moment, a bland gesture, a nondescript landscape. With their way of seeing, with the angle and the chosen treatment, they magnify the moment, poeticize the gesture, dramatize the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The theme selected for our 15th edition<\/strong> has its origins in a meeting with Kinuko Asano<\/strong>, director of the gallery \u00c9cho 119<\/a>, and the decision to entrust her with the curatorship of an exhibition bringing together five Japanese artists for the 2024 edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of discussions with the artists, their proposals, and the omnipresence of the everyday in their work, this idea <\/strong>of Transcending the commonplace<\/em> emerged, the theme of our 15th edition. Around that idea we assembled different bodies of work that are part of the \u201chumanity of the moment,\u201d2<\/sup><\/a> a concept that makes the artist an observer, a researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cEsth\u00e9tique de l\u2019ordinaire\u201d (The Esthetics of the Ordinary), Andr\u00e9 Rouill\u00e9 describes \u201can art that defends the human values of life against the predominance of the abstract, the factitious, the virtual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is what you\u2019ll discover in Par-del\u00e0 la brume<\/em> (Beyond the Mist) by Robert Charlotte<\/strong>, which blends landscapes and portraits and tells a story of the stark contrast between the harshness of nature and the human resilience of the residents of the Gasp\u00e9\u2019s north shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chieko Shiraishi<\/strong>, a true virtuoso of the silver print, uses that technique to better enhance the images of her singular world, at once poetic and deeply introspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Catherine Beaudette<\/strong> for her part digs into the detritus of everyday life in abandoned places, borrowing from the methodologies of archeology, anthropology and natural history to create fascinating images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s an overview of the programming scheduled for this 15th edition of Rencontres \u2013 which promises to be everything but ordinary!<\/p>\n\n\n\n About Rencontres<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An annual summertime event, Rencontres de la photographie en Gasp\u00e9sie introduces the public to contemporary photographic creation, its language, its codes and its various esthetics through occupation of a particular region: the Gasp\u00e9 Peninsula. There it presents a series of exhibitions and installations, public events conceived as a space for reflection and initiation, and a program of artist residencies and of exchanges with festivals in other countries. Detailed programming to come. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest information: click here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n