The Orient Express Endowment Fund presents Wagon-bar. A little history of the railway food.
After the success of the Orient-Express et cie exhibition presented in 2021 in Arles and in 2023 at the Villa Médicis, the Orient Express Endowment Fund and Les Rencontres d’Arles are renewing their collaboration and co-producing this year the exhibition Wagon-bar. Une petite histoire du repas ferroviaire at the Espace Croisière as part of the festival. The photographs and archives on display retrace the history of railway restoration in France from the end of the 19th century to the present day. A history of innovation and techniques, design and culture!
The photographs and archives presented in the exhibition come from the funds of the former Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and the Archives Documentation Service of the SNCF group. Halfway between industrial photography and advertising photography, these images have the primary function of embodying modernity by showcasing permanent novelty. Of course, the companies show what they want to show us: a reality constructed from an ideal railway universe with no rough patch. But these show a history of innovation, of work, but also a history of aesthetic, cultur and design. More than simple reflections on successive innovations, these photographs document their time. Even more, they make up the different eras as much as they bear witness to them.
The book which accompanies the exhibition will be published by Textuel editions by Arthur Mettetal, curator of the exhibition.
Wagon-bar. Une petite histoire du repas ferroviaire
Fonds de dotation Orient Express
July 1 – September 29, 2024
Espace Croisière
3 Rue Claude Férigoule
13200 Arles, France
www.croisiere-arles.fr
