International Festival of the Environmental Image.
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In Paris, from May the 15th to the 21st was held the international festival dedicated to the environmental image. This was the occasion to admire pictures, videos, installations and movies related to the environmental issue.
As far as photography goes, the present artists make us discover pictures linked to the environment. Sitting there right at our feet, we meet, among others, the work of Eric Franceschi who followed the Huneauve River, from its source to its mouth. He shows us how the river slowly degrades as, along his way, he comes across garbage and other waste. Xavier Delory invites us in the Belgian countryside where standardization catches our attention as adaptation to the environment appears to be the last of their concern. In Arkadia, Netherlands, Andrea Meichsner captures a vacation village whose uniformity has really something of the Playmobil’s house.
In Poznan, Poland, Laura Berg took pictures of animals in a zoo out of which come feelings of sadness and boredom due to their captivity that black and white prints deeply highlight. Back in Paris, Magali Roucaut whose snapshots “Paris des fleurs sauvages” or “Parisian wild flowers” bring us face to face with flowers in close-up and the Arch of Paris business district, La Défense or other urban elements in the background. Pierre-Jérôme Jehel describes the cultural dimension of a landscape in pictures inhabited by a far-off human history.
Even more powerful are Cedric Widmer’s pictures taken after the fires in Portugal stressing out the human responsibility in these ecological disasters. And other examples from France, Europe and the whole world keep showing up as we go through the exhibition.
Open to other formats, an installation attracts us to ride fitness bikes that produce electricity. Then the energy created feeds lights whose intensity depends on our effort. This installation aims at building awareness of the existing link between the expenses (the body energy) and the revenue (the light)
Elsewhere, short videos come and go in a room where we can make us comfortable on mattresses, blankets and pillows. On a video, a skier takes off on the ski jump and lands not on the snow that you expect him to softly touch down, but crashes on the bare ground: radical method to experience global warming…
In the end, as a new way to increase public awareness of a topical issue, environment, the exhibition is more efficient and attractive than a long speech. And its international approach allows us to understand this theme on a global level by grasping the diversity of the world and its ecological issues.
For those who missed it, some additional dates are planned in other cities in France and abroad.
More information: www.fiie.fr