Where to go and what to do if you are heading to Provence this summer.
Today’s destination: the city of Arles and its photography festival!
Arles is one of the most culturally active city in the south of France. Many cultural festivals and events proceed there each year for the greatest satisfaction of thousands of art and traditions lovers.
The International Photography Festival known as “Les Rencontres d’Arles” was created by Lucien Clergue , Jean-Maurice Rouquette and Michel Tournier in 1968. More than forty years later this festival is definitively, the most important event around photography in the whole world.
Usually organized around more than 50 events installed in various exceptional patrimonial places of Arles, Les Rencontres d’Arles (in English the Meetings of Arles) , each summer in July, intend to contribute to transmit the world photographic inheritance and also want to be the crucible of contemporary creation by the discovery of young talented photographers.
Thanks to a demanding programming directed by talented François Hebel and a challenging public, the Rencontres d’Arles explore the current stakes of photography and attest capacity of this medium and importance of the figure of the photographer, witness of the world which surrounds it.
How does it work?
The main event is during the first week of exhibition with official opening of all of the events, in the city and in the Parc des Ateliers.
During this first week the day end by a night screening in the Roman Theater..
After the first week you can visit during 3 months the most important exhibitions in the city and in the Parc des Ateliers.
One unmissable place to visit is holding every year is the Espace van Gogh.
Originally built in the sixteenth century as Arles main hospital and it remained as such well into the twentieth. It’s major claim to fame is that it was here that Van Gogh was committed after the infamous episode of cutting off his left earlobe in December 1888.
The courtyard has been extensively planted out to resemble as closely as possible his famous painting “Le Jardin de l’Hôtel de Dieu”.
The complex now houses the town library as well as exhibition spaces, shops and a cafe.
Information :
Rencontres d’Arles
10 rond point des Arènes
13200 Arles
