Your Sunday Inspiration ✨

This week in Arles... ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ All that glitters, Thokoza, 2018 © Tshepiso Mazibuko. Exhibited in the The Discovery Award. Courtesy the artist It’s the opening week of Les Rencontres d’Arles. Let’s dive straight in with the exhibitions, which are loosely grouped under sections including In Parallel, Traces, and Spirits (Yōkai). [Cristina De Middel’s]( Journey to the Center takes the viewer to Felicity, California, a town on the US Southern border which, through Middel’s smart parallel with Jules Verne’s book, provides an apt site for this project on migration. The Discovery Award, the emerging artist (and open application) showcase, is being curated by Audrey Illouz at Espace Monoprix. Japanese artists are well represented this year: in Aperture’s I’m so Happy You Are Here, spotlighting Japanese women photographers since the 1950s; Ishiuchi Miyako’s Belongings, reflecting on the artist’s late mother; and in the presentation of Uraguchi Kusukazu’s archive of images of the country’s legendary Ama divers, curated by Sonia Voss. Rajesh Vora’s Everyday Baroque, Randa Mirza’s Beirutopia and Wagon-Bar: A Short History of Railway Dining also worth checking out, if only to demonstrate the sheer range of photographic art on view in Arles, while the Luma Foundation opens heavy-hitting shows by Judy Chicago, William Kentridge and Theaster Gates. There are also countless events taking place across the week. A few highlights from us: on Tuesday at 16:15 in La Mécanique Générale (in Luma’s Parc des Ateliers), Urs Stahel gives a tour of When Images Learn to Speak, his exhibition of ‘conceptualised documentary photography’ featuring artists as diverse as [Tarrah Krajnak]( Helen Levitt, and Ryūji Miyamoto. The Fondazione Mast curator brings his considerable experience when delving into the vast Astrid Ullens de Schooten Whettnall collection, promising to recentre the visible in an increasingly multisensory and equivocal world. Wednesday sees a very special – and no doubt busy – exhibition tour by Sophie Calle in the city’s Cryptoportiques. Her show Neither Give Nor Throw Away responds to her series The Blind being attacked by mould spores; instead of discarding the work, which itself responds to Picasso’s death, Calle has decided to display the series in Arles’ humid underbelly, “allowing them to continue disintegrating, so that their words, which speak of nothing but beauty, could seep into the city’s foundations”. Offshore, 1974 © Uraguchi Kusukazu. On show in the solo exhibition Ama. On Thursday at 16:00, check out When Only Memories, Tombstones and Forests Remain, a panel discussion on death in photobooks at Collège Saint-Charles. Grzegorz Kosmala will moderate, joined by Lia Pradal, Christine Delory-Momberger, Yann Castanier and Hubert Humka, whose book Eternal U documents the serene beauty of UK forests which act as natural cemeteries, and which is nominated for the Rencontres d’Arles Photo-Text Book Award (winners will be announced on Tuesday evening at the Théâtre Antique). There’s also the announcement of the Prix Pictet theme at the same venue on Thursday evening. Friday has an ecological focus, with two roundtable discussions on photography’s relationship with the climate crisis. A Look at the Living World features Sandrine Cnudde and Matthieu Gafsou at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie at 13:30; later on at 16:00, it’s From Plants to Algae with Patrice Dion and Alice Pallot at Collège Saint-Charles (both talks are in French). Lastly, a special shout out to last year’s One to Watch [Mahmoud Khattab]( whose dummy book The Dog Sat Where We Parted is nominated for the LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award. We’ll be on the ground from tomorrow; we’re looking forward to catching up with lots of you this week. Michał Maliński: ‘We suppress thinking about the future out of fear of what awaits us’ The [Ones to Watch]( cover artist’s Vita Aeterna series unpacks his grandmother’s trust of alternative medicines [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( Township tales: A mixed-media depiction of Johannesburg’s soul [One to Watch]( Vuyo Mabheka plays with illustration, cut-outs and collage to depict the motion and difficulty of life in the zones [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( Cargamontón: A rough playground game which defined Rafael Soldi’s life The Peruvian [One to Watch]( Rafael Soldi has revisited childhood rituals to examine how intimacy lurks behind violence [Read more]( [Build the way you want]( Indian masculinity is complex – how can it be photographed? [One to Watch]( Devashish Gaur combines analogue and digital methods, stretch conventions to create a ‘dreamy isolation’ [Read more]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [1854 Media Ltd, 244-254 Cambridge Heath Rd, Cambridge Heath, London, E2 9DA, United Kingdom Click here to update your email preferences]( [Click here to unsubscribe from all emails](