With his reportage In God we trust, produced between 2017 and 2019, Cyril Abad offers us a trip to the heart of the eccentricities of religion in the United States. This exploration of American society through the religious prism testifies to the efforts made by the many Protestant Christian churches (which account for 52% of the population) to cope with a drop in attendance. Inspired by marketing techniques, the new evangelistic practices take into account the particularities of the geographic areas and communities that are located there. Often thanks to huge investments, new uses, new infrastructures satisfy targeted groups. The church integrates all the contributions of modernity to convey values that are sometimes very different from those of European Christians. Although the practice of faith remains one of the pillars of American society and mentalities, it is little present in the cultural products or geopolitical information that reach the old continent. After the first amused reaction, we discover the intimate foundations of a civilization which uniquely combines the teachings of the Bible, entertainment, comfort and progress.
A freelance photographer, Cyril Abad produces reports for the press as well as personal projects where he questions the place of man in the city and his relationship to his environment. His deliberately offbeat photographic writing, sometimes amusing, intuitive and pictorial, is influenced by humanist photography and one of its derivative styles, street photography.
A co-production of La Chambre, Graph-CMI (Carcassone) and Destin Sensible (Mons-en-Baroeul)
Cyril Abad : In God We Trust
27.06 – 02.08.20
19.08 – 30.08.20
La Chambre
Espace D’exposition et de Formation à l’Image
4 Place d’Austerlitz, 67000 Strasbourg, France
Free entry
Wednesday to Sunday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
