Blog

Given Data

Exhibit

Collective Project

A carte blanche was granted to MAPS by the Institut pour la Photographie, France’s largest photography venue. Six photographers — Elena Anosova, Matthieu Gafsou, Cédric Gerbehaye, Simona Ghizzoni, Christian Lutz, John Vink — and the graphic artist Chiquinquirá García found themselves faced with regional statistical data, which became the starting point for their exploration.

It resulted in the collective project “Given Data” — six photographic essays, a collective exhibition, workshops. Alongside the exhibition, six graphic creations have been created by Chiquinquira Garcia, bringing together the images, their context and the data that were the starting point for the work.

More information on the exhibition

Take a look at the graphic creations

Blog

Given Data

Photo exhibition
September 10th – November 15th 2020
@ Institut pour la photographie - Lille, France

The Institut pour la photographie has invited MAPS to carry out a project in the French Hauts-de-France region.

Six photographers — Elena Anosova, Matthieu Gafsou, Cédric Gerbehaye, Simona Ghizzoni, Christian Lutz, John Vink — and the graphic artist Chiquinquirá García found themselves faced with regional statistical data, the starting point for their exploration.

 

 

Figures ultimately tell us very little about the reality of a region and the experience of its inhabitants. A paradox specifically selected as raw material to define the directions that their projects were going to take.

Far from being scientifically exhaustive, the subjects selected address both their respective sensitivities, as part of a longer term thought process, and current social issues: inclusion, tourism, rural life, immigration, agriculture, parenthood.

Over and above the data, it was meetings with the inhabitants – intimately related to the selected topics – which fed different routes. The people who willingly took part were photographed, but they also took photographs. So they drew, wrote and recounted as well. Thanks to this participatory approach, the exhibition and publication presented here bear their mark.

From individual experience to collective creation, the projects thus manage to sketch the contours of a more complex and sensitive human, social and environmental reality, which transcends specific details to consider what is universal to us all.

 

Program

Around the exhibition, several events are scheduled:

  • Septembre 10th: Vernissage in Lille & Publication of the graphic creations designed by Chiquinquira Garcia which accompany the exhibitions. Available for purchase on site.
  • September 12th: Matthieu Gafsou's "Alive" series will be exhibited simultaneously at La Brasserie, Arras, France. La Brasserie's website
  • October 10-11th: Workshop with Cédric Gerbehaye. More information
  • November: Workshop with Simona Ghizzoni. More information soon.

 

Info

From September 10th to November 15th

Institut pour la photographie

31 rue Faidherbe
59000 Lille – France
+33 (0)320 888 862

www.institut-photo.com

 

"Team" by Elena Anosova

"Team" by Elena Anosova

For the Amiens SC partially sighted football team, sport is first and foremost a demonstration of solidarity and an affirmation of their identity, as a player, an individual and above all as a member of a professional team.

"Alive" by Matthieu Gafsou

"Alive" by Matthieu Gafsou

Matthieu Gafsou met agricultural producers and micro-communities who have set up other forms of social organisation and other ways of thinking about the relationship with their environment. Rather than forcing nature, these people accept that they cannot control it or dominate it. "Alive" is a personal testimony of a relationship with living things.

"Odysseys and horizons" by Cédric Gerbehaye

"Odysseys and horizons" by Cédric Gerbehaye

They have experienced the survivor’s odyssey of the Sahara, the hell of Libya, ships sinking in the Mediterranean Sea, violence, hunger... Today, they have a new life at the Maurice Duhamel Vocational College. Their education in construction skills offers them brand new horizons.

"My mother is a river" by Simona Ghizzoni

"My mother is a river" by Simona Ghizzoni

Together with the women she met at the ”Accueil Mères Enfants” centre, Simona Ghizzoni built a dialogue about being a mother, outside of stereotypes, a dialogue that would restore the beauty and resilience of these mothers (and fathers) who fight to become parents.

"Summer Holidays" by Christian Lutz

"Summer Holidays" by Christian Lutz

Christian Lutz’s photographs were taken in tourist spots in the Hauts de France such as Chantilly, Berck, au Touquet, Boulogne- sur-Mer and Pierrefonds, in August 2019.

"The Battle of the Railroads" by John Vink

"The Battle of the Railroads" by John Vink

In Hauts-de-France, the railways were intimately linked to the industrial era of the early 19th century, conveying coal throughout Europe. The economic changes of the following centuries led to its decline. Today, as the car is being criticized, the train is depicted as an ecologically friendly means of transport. But is hardly being implemented.

Graphic creations, by Chiquinquira Garcia

For each photographic series, Chiquinquira Garcia designed a brochure, bringing together the images, their context and the data that provided the starting point for the work. These graphic creations unfold to become posters.