La Photographie à L’Epau presents “Ensemble”, an exhibition by Gérard Uféras on view until November 1, 2026 at the Abbaye royale de l’Epau.
“Carnivals, ferias, fan zones… Gérard Uféras is where the collective takes its place again. The Ensemble project was born in the context of Covid, as a response to isolation. A simple intuition: we need others. The need to come together, to mingle, to form a body. The need to celebrate.
In his images, all generations mingle, all social classes cross paths. People dress up, dance, embrace, laugh, let themselves be carried away. His eye is attentive, precise, often funny, always kind. He captures fleeting moments a gesture, a posture, a look and transforms them into scenes of contagious tenderness. For Gérard Uféras, the collective is not a backdrop: it is a necessity. A way of inhabiting the world, of repairing its fractures, and of simply reaffirming the desire to be together. A welcome breath of air at a time when bonds often grow thin, when the world’s violence presses in, when social media and algorithms isolate us in virtual bubbles. This long-term project, carried out over fifty stages across three years, was made in France, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.”
Anaïs Viand
Gérard Uféras, born in Paris in 1954, is one of the leading figures of contemporary French photography. In 1984, he began a regular collaboration with the newspaper Libération, before helping found the Agence VU’, then joining the Agence Rapho. His body of work, developed over several decades, stands out for its profoundly humanist eye and constant attention to form. A recipient of a Villa Médicis hors les murs grant, he spent many years capturing the backstage and onstage life of Europe’s greatest opera houses, from the Opéra de Paris to Moscow’s Bolshoi, work that earned him a World Press Photo award. Long-term projects on the worlds of fashion, ballet, and sport followed. His project “Paris d’amour,” exhibited at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, was seen by sixty thousand visitors. At the same time, he has pursued a long-term exploration of collective rituals and spaces of performance, from carnivals to ferias to contemporary popular gatherings. His eye, at once precise and poetic, reveals the gestures, postures, and dynamics at play between individuals.
Whether through museum visitors, bodies in motion, or crowds sharing a moment, Gérard Uféras questions how we exist together and how we make images. His work has been exhibited at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, as well as in numerous international institutions, and he is the author of some fifteen books. In 2023, his work entered the collections of the MPP, which holds the French State’s photographic collections. In 2025, a retrospective was devoted to him at the Villa Tamaris, underscoring the importance of his work in the contemporary photography landscape.
Gérard Uféras : Ensemble
Until November 1, 2026
Abbaye royale de l’Epau
Route de Changé
72530 Yvré l’Evèque
https://www.sarthe.fr/actualites/une-nouvelle-saison-photographique-debute-labbaye-royale-de-lepau
