Saturday 1st - Sunday 16th September 2012 - Perpignan 

Festival International du Photojournalisme 2012

 

Visa pour l’image

 

With great sadness.... from the Visa Team It is with enormous sadness and grief that we learned in February of this year that two Western journalists had been killed in attacks targeting a press center in the city of Homs run by activists opposing the Syrian regime. Rémi Ochlik, a French citizen, and Mary Colvin, a US citizen, have had their lives tragically cut short. Mary Colvin (56), based in London, was a correspondent for the Sunday Times who had covered the Middle East for more than twenty years, and other conflict zones including Timor, Chechnya, Kosovo and Sri Lanka. Rémi Ochlik was only 28; he had covered the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and had just been awarded the 2012 World Press Photo first prize (in the "Stories/General News category") for work on Libya. He should have been presented with the prize in Amsterdam in April. His photos have been published extensively by the international media. Rémi was a loyal friend of Visa pour l’Image where he was seen as a young photojournalist with enormous talent, destined to be one of the truly great reporters of the future. The drama has occurred less than two months after the death on January 11 of the French feature reporter Gilles Jacquier, the first Western journalist killed in Syria, ten months after the popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime began. We wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of both victims.

 

THE SHOCK WAVE IN GREECE
Athens, February 23, 2011. A policeman trying to escape after a petrol bomb was thrown at him during riots in front of the Parliament

The 24th international festival of photojournalism will take place in Perpignan from Saturday 1st - Sunday 16th September and promises to be every bit as exciting as the 24 that have preceded it. VISA has become the major cultural event of the P.-O. and puts Perpignan firmly in the centre of the world map for anyone with the slightest interest in photojournalism.

Young photographers are encouraged and compete for the 120 million euros worth of prizes in varying categories. There will be workshops, lectures, the wonderful nights of huge images projected onto giant screens in the Campo Santo and the Place de la Republique and, of course, 27 or so wonderfully varied and completely free exhibitions in all the usual venues scattered around central Perpignan. And many bars and restaurants will be full, not only with enthusiastic exhibition goers, but also with the alternative photo exhibitions of VISA OFF.

Jean Francois Leroy, VISA’s founder and leading light is hyper critical of the current tendency to manipulate digital images. Given that 99.9% of all photographs are now digital and that the software becomes more sophisticated every year, the temptation to “enhance” images is considerable. “Fine and fair enough” says JF Leroy “if the image is of your aging granny. But, to exaggerate world events, to transform and arrange to catch the eye of some picture editor is unacceptable.” He insists on seeing the unworked image before selecting the photographs that will be displayed.

 

Wander around exhibitions documenting amongst other issues.....Guantanamo Bay, Nigeria, North Korea, shock Wave in Greece, the Graveyards of E-waste, mental health in African countries, Afghanistan from the inside, coming of age for Swazi girls, the Rastafari Movement, North Korea hunger crisis, child brides…..

CHILD BRIDES
Maya (8) and Kishore (13) pose for a wedding photo in their new home.

The World Press Prize winners will be displayed as well as the winners of the best images of the year from the Daily Press. Make a note of the dates. It takes more than a day to enjoy and appreciate all the VISA and Perpignan has to offer.

 

Evening screening and exhibitions are presented in the following historical and cultural spots of Perpignan

1 Couvent des Minimes
2 Eglise des Dominicains
3 Couvent Sainte Claire
4 Le Castillet
5 Palais des Corts
6 Caserne Gallieni
7 Ancienne Université
8 Chapelle du Tiers-Ordre
9 Arsenal des Carmes
10 Palais des Congrès

The evenings are also an opportunity for all concerned, including many professionals, to discover pictures they may not have seen, either because they had never been published or because there was no chance to see them.
 

Visitors will find a brochure, in 4 languages with full programme of the festival

Visit the exhibition website for full details of the event

 

CLICK HERE FOR OUR PERPIGNAN RESTAURANT RECOMMENDATION

 

Evening Shows 

  
Monday, September 3 to Saturday, September 8. 9.45pm at Campo Santo.
September 6 to 8: simultaneous screenings on the Place de la République.
(In the event of bad weather, there will be no alternative venue.)

The Visa pour l’Image evening shows will cover the main events of the past year, from September 2011 to August 2012. Every evening, from Monday to Saturday, the program will begin with a chronological review of the news stories, two months at a time. This is followed by reports and features on society, wars, stories that have made the news and others that have been kept quiet, plus coverage of the state of the world today. Visa pour l’Image also presents retrospectives on major events and figures in history. The Visa pour l’Image award ceremonies are held during the evening shows.

Featuring in the 2012 Festival program (subjects may change)

✄ News stories of the year across the continents: war, crises, politics, strange and remarkable events, sport, culture, science, the environment etc.
✄ India, Burma, Turkey, Israel/Palestine, Romania, the Dominican Republic & Haiti, New Guinea, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China;
✄ Indignados around the world,
✄ the food crisis in Africa with war, desertification and undernourishment,
✄ the European far right, anger in Greece, migrants in Italy,
✄ the presidential election campaign in France and more.
✄ A review of the main news stories in 2011.
✄ One year on, what has happened with the Arab revolutions? One year after the tsunami, how is Japan rebuilding?
✄ Tributes to Göksin Sipahioglu, Rémi Ochlik, Eve Arnold, Paula Lerner, Jérôme Brézillon, Horst Faas, Brassaï (America 1957)...
✄ Video books: Miquel Dewever-Plana, Pascal Maitre, Charles Ommanney and Jérôme Sessini.
✄ Retrospectives:
Twenty years ago war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A review of war in the former Yugoslavia.
✄ A History of Syria from 1920 to the present.
✄ Fifty years ago: Independence for Algeria.
✄ One hundred years ago, the Titanic made its first and last voyage.

Discover Perpignan

For those with even the slightest interest in photography, a better way to discover some of Perpignan’s heritage buildings would be hard to imagine:

Hotel Pams in the Rue Emile Zola is the meeting place for all the press photographers. It was Pierre Bardou of JOB cigarette paper fame who bought it and several surrounding houses in the 1850s. He ended his days living in Hotel Pams with his daughter Jeanne (for whom Ch Valmy was built) and her husband, Jules Pams the brilliant lawyer, politician and art lover. After Jeanne’s death Jules Pams married again and, with the architect designer Leopold Carlier and the artist Paul Gervais, created the rich and fantastic interior visible today. His second wife, Marguerite Holtzer sold Hotel Pams to the town hall in 1946. The Tourist Office in Perpignan offers tours of these beautiful old “hotels particuliars”or, during VISA you could pop your head around the door, for a glimpse of the wealth of Perpignan a century ago.

It is in the Couvent des Minimes that the largest number of the exhibitions are assembled. There you will find the prize winners. World Press Awards, news, war, peace, sport, nature, all are represented and hung upstairs in one of the collection of buildings grouped around a vast courtyard. The Convent, dedicated to Ste Marie de la Victoire, was built close to the ramparts in 1573 in what was then Perpignan’s Jewish Quarter. The building, almost exclusively of red brick, took many years. There is a church, there are several small chapels, cloisters round what may have been a ritual Jewish bath, a grand staircase with interesting sculpted details. However, from 29th August to 13th September the church, the old monk’s dormitories, the grand corridors, the kitchens, will all be filled with photographs, the cloisters and courtyard with parasols and photographers taking a welcome break from the troubled world represented within.

One of the most beautiful buildings in Perpignan is the XIII/XIV century Chapelle des Dominicains. The soaring 26 metre high nave, light streaming through clear, tall, narrow windows, has photographs at hung at eye level on wires reaching almost out of sight making it the most impressive exhibition space of all VISA. The buildings are well worth visiting in their own right. Part of the Cloisters was sold to the army in the XVIII century and was, until recently, the base of the French Foreign Legion. After April 1791with the secularisation of religious buildings, the Dominicans departed. Now, throughout the year, it is used as a venue for any number of concerts, art and antique fairs, festivals and demonstrations and workshops.

From the southernmost corner of the chapel a door leads to the Chapelle du Tiers Ordre on the Place de al Revolution Francaise. The heavy religious art depicting the “Battle of the Dominicans against Heresy” covering the walls and ceiling of the nave is the work of Jacques Gamelin. Having been employed by the Pope for a while he became a military painter after the Revolution, attached to General Dugommier and much admired at the time. In 1846 the chapel served as the Court where the “Trabucayres” a band of Catalan brigands who had been very effective in terrorising much of the P.O. were tried. VISA hangs some controversial photographs on its walls each September. The Place de la Revolution Francaise is an ideal spot for lunch in the dappled shade of tall plane trees. Many small restaurants abound, offering menus for most tastes and budgets.

The XVIII century Ancienne Universite, is another VISA venue. Marechal Mailly, commander of the Province in 1760, decided to build the “new” university and personally donated 20,000 books. Forty years on it had ceased to function as a university became a Library then the Muse des Beaux Arts. Since 1980 has been the home of the Communal Archives… and another venue for VISA.

The Castillet, symbol of Perpignan was built in 1368 by Pierre IV of Aragon to defend his kingdom of Mallorca against the French. To finance the project huge taxes were imposed on all merchants arriving at the main town gate it guarded. When the troops of Louis XI took Perpignan between 1475 and 1483 the Castillet was reinforced to defend his city against the Spanish…and to control the locals revolting against the French… A beautiful crenulated terrace was added to support his cannons and survey the plain of Roussillon. After enjoying the photographs it is well worth going on up to this terrace for the spectacular views it affords over the city, the plain and Canigou.

It is to Campo Santo, the largest and oldest funeral cloister in France that you must go to enjoy the VISA evenings. There, events will be projected on a huge screen; explored as night falls on Perpignan. Differing subjects, differing points of view will be displayed, each continent represented.

In the Place de la Republique, a second huge screen repeats the Campo Santo screenings to an even larger audience sitting in the many cafes and bars with which the Place is blessed.

And to add to the interest VISA OFF presents the work of many, many more photographers. Local businesses, predominantly in the town centre, have, since 1996, been hosting exhibitions of an interest and dynamism that has gained them a considerable following and added a still greater incentive to explore and enjoy Perpignan in the first half of September every year.

 

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