How to make a landscape speak? Photography and geopolitics.

Landscapes hold traces of human histories—political, colonial, social, or economic. Through fragmented glimpses, Karim Kal’s nocturnal landscapes reveal the historical and social stratifications of the Haute Kabylie region. Meanwhile, Zineb Sedira’s landscapes evoke ecological destruction and migration. Such artistic practices, which explore the forces shaping landscapes and seek to make visible the complex relationships between humans and their environment, contribute to Danièle Méaux’s geo-photographic reflections.

On the occasion of Place des images, organized alongside Karim Kal’s Mons Ferratus exhibition, the two artists and the contemporary photography specialist will discuss landscapes as documents, the ways in which photographers choose to represent them, and how they “make them speak”.
If landscapes serve as records of histories and narratives—sometimes violent ones—how do photographers, acting as archaeologists of contemporary landscapes, translate these memories into images? And how do they engage with the political stakes of representing these territories?

Event held in French.
Tickets are available for purchase online.

Guests

Karim Kal
Born in 1977 in Switzerland, French-Algerian photographer Karim Kal lives in Samoëns in Haute-Savoie. Karim Kal studied at the Grenoble School of Fine Arts and the Vevey School of Photography (Switzerland). He first developed an interest in the portrait genre, before photographing public spaces, primarily  at night. However, his work always revolves around the human presence, focusing on the traces left by culture and history. His work has recently been exhibited at the Ikon Gallery (Birmingham, England), La Galerie (Noisy-le-Sec), Les Magasins Généraux (Pantin), the Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon and the Musée d’Art Moderne d’Alger (MAMA). His work has been included in the collections of the Fonds national d’art contemporain, the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain of Saint-Etienne Métropole (MAMC+), the FRAC Auvergne and the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration.

Danièle Méaux
A specialist in contemporary photography, Danièle Méaux is an emeritus professor of aesthetics and art sciences at the University of Saint-Étienne. She is particularly interested in documentary photographic practices and the book as a space for creation. Among other works, she has written Voyages de photographes (2009), Géo-photographies. Une approche renouvelée du territoire (2015), Enquêtes. Nouvelles formes de photographie documentaire (2019), Photographie contemporaine & anthropocène (2022), and Quand la photographie pense la forêt (2024). She is also the co-author (with Pierre Suchet) of Sur les traces du Furan : une enquête photographique (2024). She is the editor-in-chief of the online journal Focales.

Zineb Sedira
Zineb Sedira found inspiration initially in researching her identity as a woman with a singular personal geography. From these autobiographical concerns she gradually shifted her interest to more universal ideas of mobility, memory and transmission. Full of her fascination for the relationship between mother and daughter, her vidéo Mother Tongue (2002), depicts three generations of women and raises the issue of transmission in a globalized world. Sedira has also addressed environmental and geographical issues, negotiating between both past and future. Using portraits, landscapes, language and archival research, she has developed a polyphonic vocabulary, spanning fiction, documentary and more poetic and lyrical approaches. Sedira has worked in installation, photography, film, video and she has recently returned to object-making. Preserving and transmitting memories of the past in order to leave a legacy for the future has often been at the core of Sedira’s work. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.