An Interview with Charles-Henri Gros, director of the French Institute in Jordan and founder of the Image Festival
With his eyes fixed on the horizon, Charles-Henri Gros, an easygoing man in his forties, “got the job done,” as they say. Since his appointment as Director of the French Institute in Jordan in September 2010, Gros has sought to make the photography scene more visible and vibrant not only in this country, but in the entire region. The founder of the Image Festival spoke with us about how one of the most important international photography festivals in the Arab-speaking world came to be.
Fanny Lambert: What’s the story behind the Image Festival?
Charles-Henri Gros: The festival was created as a result of three observations, which are immediately apparent when you consider what the image represents in Jordanian society. First: the place of the image in the Arab world is unparalleled, mainly for reasons having to do with religious tradition. The use of screens on satellite TV, the Internet and mobile phones has become widespread in recent years, but there was never the opportunity to reflect on what these images meant or how to interpret them. There was no time for a ‘culture of the image’ to establish itself. However, despite this modest familiarity with the image, political crises and conflicts have imposed their ‘news in pictures’ in homes across the country. The image is often associated only with these events. The final observation concerns the photographers themselves. Here in Jordan, genuinely talented people have adopted photography as a mode of expression. However, this absence of image culture I mentioned is holding them back in their work, both commercially and artistically. This had to be remedied, and a festival seemed like the right framework to make it possible.
Fanny Lambert
Read the full article on the French version of Le Journal.
