ARLES

LES RENCONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

 

Edition 2025 MUSÉE DÉPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE LE MUSÉE BLEU AN ARCHITECTURE IN THE COLOR OF TIME 25 MUSÉE DÉPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE         7 JULY - 5 OCTOBER 2025         09.30  AM - 08.00 PM         CLOSED ON TUESDAYS         LAST ENTRANCE: 5.30PM.         accessible

 

Le Musée Bleu, an Architecture in the Color of Time, is an exhibition produced in collaboration with the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, and celebrates the birth of the institution, its collections and its architecture.

These 30 years of service to heritage were enabled by the curator Jean-Maurice Rouquette and the architect Henri Ciriani, who created a showcase for the collections that finally brought them together.

The tour traces Ciriani’s work and the various stages in the creation of the Musée Bleu. Concurrently, it sheds light on the museum’s historic holdings—artworks scattered across Arles since the 18th century, now brought into focus. Everyone will be able to share their own vision of “their” Musée Bleu and their memories thanks to the reconstruction of the collection of testimonies assembled for the museum's 30th anniversary.

SMITH offers a visual dialogue with the collections. Students from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles, led by Yannick Vernet, Oualid Lazrak and Luce Lebart, are also adding their own creations to the exhibition, entitled Mais pour qui la pierre se prend-elle?

Based on the collections of the Musée Départemental Arles Antique, its history and geographical location, fictional narratives have emerged, brought to life by 8 ENSP students: Audrey Borja, Alexander Dimitrios Papadopoulos, Marion Hamiez, Jan Oliver Heise, Soyan Issa, Fédéri Laurence and the duo Hugo Jacq & TeeradonThongsaard. Archaeological objects, fragments of history, archives, collections and memories of excavations become the starting points for an imaginary exploration. Using photography, writing, sound and video, students combine the distant past with contemporary issues to produce fictions deeply rooted in reality.
Inspired by Donna Haraway's “speculative fabulations”, the project invites us to think with ruins: not as frozen relics, but as living, active materials capable of dialoguing with our current concerns.

 

Scientific curators: Stéphanie Quantin-Biancalani and Romy Wyche.

Executive curators: Laurent Strippoli and Aliénor Tallagrand.

Publication: Le Musée bleu, une architecture couleur du temps, Silvana Editoriale, 2025.