RETHINKING IDENTITY
Le Festival du Mois Européen de la Photographie au Luxembourg est un festival international majeur dédié à la photographie et à la culture visuelle. Initié en 2006 par Café-Crème asbl en partenariat avec les principales institutions photographiques de Paris, Berlin et Vienne, le festival a pu offrir depuis une plateforme internationale diversifiée pour l’échange d’idées, l’expression artistique et l’engagement avec la photographie sous toutes ses formes.
Le festival rassemble des artistes et photographes émergents et confirmés dans le but de refléter sous le thème de « RETHINKING IDENTITY » la diversité de la photographie de notre temps.
RETHINKING IDENTITY de Pol Trierweiler
Les pièces de cette série font partie d'un projet documentaire sur lequel Pol travaille depuis deux ans. Le sujet est inspiré d'un endroit du sud de la France dans lequel il se rend chaque année avec sa famille. Il a toujours considéré ce voyage comme acquis ; ce n'est que maintenant qu'il réfléchit au temps qui passe. A la façon dont il se souviendra de ces voyages une fois qu'ils s'arsêteront inévitablement. Pol a donc décidé de documenter cet endroit, auquel il se sent tellement connecté. La représentation de la diversité de la végétation était quelque chose de très
Qui est Pol Trierweiler ?
Pol Trierweiler est un artiste luxembourgeois de 20 ans. Il a commencé à pratiquer la photographie dans le cadre d'un travail scolaire il y a environ quatre ans. Malgré le temps qu'il a fallu pour s'approprier ce média, la photographie est désormais essentielle à son expression en tant qu'artiste.
Le travail de Pol consiste en un mélange de photographie analogique et numérique. Son approche de la photographie est presque entièrement basée sur l'intuition, les séances photo planifiées étant rares. Lorsque Pol prend des photos, il cherche avant tout à "créer des souvenirs", quelque chose auquel se raccrocher pour les années à venir. Ainsi, une grande partie de son travail se compose de projets documentaires et de photographie de rue.
BOUCHEE A LA REINE de Manon Diederich
Cette série de collages interroge les structures de pouvoir patriarcales, en représentant – et dans une certaine mesure, en reproduisant – l’acte violent du muselage. En utilisant d’anciens portraits de femmes issues de différents milieux sociaux et historiques et en leur collant du ruban adhésif sur la bouche, les collages évoquent un sentiment de censure forcenée. Si les protagonistes peuvent encore respirer, elles ne peuvent ni parler, ni élever la voix, ni exprimer leurs pensées, leurs sentiments et leurs émotions. Elles sont « bouchées », mais comme des reines : bouchée à la reine.
Qui est Manon Diederich ?
Manon Diederich est née au Luxembourg en 1987. Anthropologue sociale et culturelle de formation, elle vit et travaille à Cologne, où elle a passé plusieurs années à étudier la question du genre et de la migration dans les pays du Sud. Cette expérience et son travail actuel en tant que formatrice transculturelle et anti-discrimination ont un impact sur sa pratique artistique. Dans son travail, elle utilise différents médias, tels que la photographie, la vidéo, le texte et les collages, et s’intéresse tout particulièrement aux questions liées aux approches féministes intersectionnelles et postcoloniales.
HUMAN de Pit Reding
Dans notre société, on nous apprend à être durs, à ne jamais montrer nos faiblesses ou notre vulnérabilité. Nous sommes censés être forts, affronter le monde sans fléchir, contrôler nos émotions. Mais la vérité, c’est que nous sommes tous humains. Nous avons tous des moments de peur, de doute et d’incertitude. Nous sommes tous aux prises avec nos émotions et la complexité de notre vie intérieure.
En explorant la notion de vulnérabilité, Pit nous invite à nous confronter aux parties de nous-mêmes que l’on nous a appris à cacher. Les images qui en résultent sont une célébration de la vulnérabilité. En reconnaissant nos peurs et nos incertitudes, nous pouvons commencer à les dépasser et à devenir les personnes que nous voulons être. Nous pouvons commencer à considérer la vulnérabilité comme une source de force, et non de faiblesse, et apprendre à exploiter son pouvoir dans nos vies.
En fin de compte, cette série de photographies nous rappelle que nous sommes tous confrontés à la même réalité. Nous avons tous des moments de vulnérabilité, et c’est normal. C’est ce qui fait de nous des humains. Alors, accueillons notre vulnérabilité ainsi que la complexité et la beauté de nos vies émotionnelles.
Qui est Pit Reding ?
Pit Reding est un photographe queer entièrement autodidacte basé au Luxembourg. Graphiste de formation, il s’est rapidement découvert une véritable passion pour la photographie. La passion de Pit va bien au-delà de l’esthétique, son objectif étant d’utiliser son art comme un moyen d’explorer et de représenter des questions sociales importantes. Ainsi, Pit travaille fréquemment avec des thèmes et des individus appartenant à la communauté LGBTIA+. Étant lui-même membre de cette communauté, il célèbre la diversité et la complexité des identités queer et cherche à créer une société plus inclusive et plus tolérante.
À travers son art, il remet en question les modèles de beauté conventionnels et incite les spectateurs à reconsidérer leurs idées préconçues sur la forme humaine. Tout en continuant à repousser les limites, Pit reste déterminé à créer des œuvres qui célèbrent la beauté et la complexité de l’expérience humaine.
NUCLEAR PARADISE
This photography exhibition depicts the daily lives of the people who live on the Pacific atoll of Hao. The people live in a region which has been severely affected by French nuclear testing, a fact that is still little known in Europe.
Hao atoll
In the early 1960s, Hao was radically transformed into a military base to support the French nuclear testing programme in French Polynesia. Between 1966 and 1996, the Pacific Experimentation Centre (Centre d'Expérimentation du Pacifique – CEP) launched 193 nuclear missiles on Moruroa and Fangataufa, two atolls located some 400 kilometres south of Hao.
During the nuclear tests, Vautour military aircraft would fly into the radioactive clouds over Moruroa and Fangataufa to collect gas samples, and then fly to Hao to be decontaminated with seawater. When the nuclear testing activities came to an end in 1996, the French army buried the radioactive waste on the atoll and dumped bulky military waste in the Hao lagoon.
Despite the environmental and health impacts stemming from the testing activities during this period, many Hao islanders look back on their military and nuclear past with a sense of nostalgia. This can be explained by the fact that the French military presence propelled considerable socio-economic growth, with lucrative opportunities for the atoll's inhabitants, as well as free access to electricity and drinking water. The development of the atoll led to the emergence of a vibrant lifestyle, with nightclubs and the Polynesian territory's very first cinema. Hao's military nuclear past has left its mark not only on the atoll's landscapes and architectural remains, but also on its inhabitants, some of whom still live in former military buildings.
Following the withdrawal of the French military forces in 2000, the unemployment rate on Hao rose significantly. Many of the atoll's 1,200 inhabitants felt abandoned and eventually came to realise that the "golden age" of France's military presence had come with a price, namely a state of extreme dependence and contaminated land.
In 2021, the photographer Laurent Sturm accompanied his wife, Lis Kayser, on a research trip to French Polynesia. Lis Kayser wrote her doctoral thesis in anthropology as part of the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) "Radioactive Ruins" research project. Part of her work entailed gathering empirical evidence of the socio-economic and cultural impact of nuclear testing in French Polynesia. During their monthslong stay on Hao, Laurent Sturm explored the visual impact of the atoll's nuclear and military past on the inhabitants' daily lives.
About the artist
Laurent Sturm was born in 1985 and has been pursuing photography with a passion since his teens. Collections of his photographic work have been displayed at several joint exhibitions, including at the Nei Liicht Gallery and the Centre de Documentation sur les Migrations Humaines (Human Migrations Documentation Centre), with Fotoclub Diddeleng, and at Kulturfabrik and Rotondes. The exhibition in Merl Park will be Laurent Sturm's first solo exhibition.
With a fascination for capturing the daily experiences of people from all walks of life, Laurent Sturm has travelled the globe, his journeys further fuelling his passion for street and documentary photography.
He is currently enrolled at Spéos, the International Photography School in Paris, where he is pursuing a course in photojournalism with the support of Polka magazine.
"Mat den Hänn"
"Mat den Hänn" is the product of a collaboration between artist and photographer Mike Zenari and the deuxième students at Lycée Aline Mayrisch Luxembourg taking the optional photography course (2021/22 school year), with support from their art teacher Séverine Bauer.
Together with Mike Zenari – originally from Dudelange and winner of the City of Dudelange's Cultural Prize for the Best Up-and-Coming Artist (Prix culturel de l'Espoir) in April 2022 – these photography students have created portraits of 16 different professions in the districts of Merl, Belair and Hollerich, including hairdressers, dentists, teachers, bartenders and pharmacists, all of which focus on a single part of the human body: the hands. The faces and expressions of the photographed subjects are all obscured, forcing visitors to the exhibition to focus on the hands in each picture. The aim of the images is to remind people how important our hands are to us and how they can be used to work, communicate, and apply considerable force or perform the most delicate of tasks.
The exhibition is organised by the City of Luxembourg in collaboration with the SCRIPT and Lycée Aline Mayrisch Luxembourg.
ROMAIN URHAUSEN – THE LIFE AND TIMES
ROMAIN URHAUSEN (1930–2021)
Photography exhibition to complement "ROMAIN URHAUSEN – THE LIFE AND TIMES", organised by LËT’Z ARLES for Luxembourg's fifth appearance at the Rencontres d'Arles
The exhibit aims to showcase the diversity of Romain Urhausen's work through a series of 16 photos. These include portraits and cityscapes taken in Luxembourg City – where he lived and worked during much of his lifetime – as well as some more experimental and abstract snapshots. After coming to the attention of Edward Steichen – the Luxembourg painter and photographer considered one of the most influential figures in the history of photography – in the early 1950s, Urhausen went on to present his work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as part of the "Postwar European photography" exhibit in 1953. Between 1950 and 1960, his work was displayed in Cologne, Munich, Paris, Chicago, Boston and Japan. In 2016, the Luxembourg National Audiovisual Centre paid tribute to his legacy with a retrospective exhibition.
The exhibition, with support from the National Audiovisual Centre and in collaboration with Lët'z Arles, will be on display in Merl Park until the end of September 2022.
URBAN DIALOG
Photography exhibition by Jessica Theis (February–June 2022)
The "URBAN DIALOG" project, by Luxembourg artist and photographer Jessica Theis, was created to be put on display in Merl Park. As the title indicates, the exhibit directs the observer's attention to the dialog between its subjects and their environment. Printed on glossy and semi-transparent panels, the images elicit a conversation between the depicted architectural elements and the surrounding natural environment, and even incorporate the visitor or passer-by, whose reflection can be seen in the artwork.
RÉFLEXIONS REFLECTIONS
Photography exhibition by Véronique Kolber (September 2021–January 2022)
Artist and photographer Véronique Kolber created this project in collaboration with photography students at Lycée Aline Mayrisch (taking the optional photography class) and their art teacher, Séverine Bauer.
Véronique Kolber is a freelance photographer who works in Luxembourg. She is especially interested in the themes of memory, reality and fiction, which she explores in an intimate, poetic style.
The students drew inspiration from her work as they set out to examine their own daily lives, seeking natural and artificial reflected light around them. Using their mobile phones to create a logbook of sorts, they captured images that can be interpreted as traces or marks of their everyday existence. Light reflected on a wall, a cloud of steam fogging a window and obscuring the view, a shimmering portrait: all these mundane phenomena colour our perception of the world we experience every day. In creating a distance from their inner lives, these "reflections" invite viewers to enter the realm of dreams, fantasy and obscurity.
Instincts. Same but different
Photography exhibition by Cristina Dias de Magalhães (April–September 2021)
The exhibition was put together by artist Cristina Dias de Magalhães and is meant to be experienced as a private diary in which the artist visually and emotionally interprets her family environment. Fascinated by the innate bond between her twin daughters, she has attempted to capture their experiences of early childhood through their eyes as they share moments of delight, explore their environment, discover themselves and build relationships with others.
By incorporating the animal world her daughters love observing and analysing, she creates a dialogue between the images, in which instinct prevails and guides the viewer. As a mother, she imagines herself as the archetypal animal figure, full of symbolism and human traits, and accompanies her daughters in their daily learning. Her diptychs reveal a silent bond created by feelings and shared moments. This physical encounter – imagined, yet at the same time very real – reminds us that we are born into a complex world where we rely on our instincts for our very survival.
Her project, "Instincts. Same but different", on display until September 2021, is part of the 8th European Month of Photography in Luxembourg.
Transitions
Photography exhibition by Séverine Peiffer (December 2020–April 2021)
"Transitions" is the result of a joint effort between the artist Séverine Peiffer, photography students at Lycée Aline Mayrisch Luxembourg, and their teacher Séverine Bauer. This project was devised by the artist, who encouraged students to explore their identity and emotions through photography, using the self-portraiture process as a means to build on their sense of identity.
The exhibition featured 10 large-format portraits (120×160 cm) created using the wet-collodion process. They convey these young adults' emotional responses to the world around them, serving both as a forceful affirmation of their existence, and as a dialogue between them and the viewer.
