Aux Docks d’Arles presents two exhibitions of photography by Valerie Leonard during les Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles 2024: The Time Keepers, July 1-14 and The Labors of Hercules, July 16-30.
“Valerie Leonard’s photography emerges from a profound personal and creative journey. . . , she builds friendships, nurtures empathy, and forms bonds with groups of women and men whose paths diverge from ours as spectators. She does not see them as models to photograph, as cultures to discover, or social issues to expose. Her approach transcends art for art’s sake, anthropology, and politics. It is an honest and straightforward gaze at individuals who entrust her with a fragment of their humanity. This trust is built over time spent together, up close, on the same land, in the same heat, under the same sun, or through the same storms.” –Etienne Liebig, writer, composer, and musician
“It may seem shocking to depict human calamities in magnificent representations. One recalls, in this regard, the sharp, but fortunately short-lived criticisms that accompanied the publication of Sebastiäo Salgado’s photographs. In this context, the notion that beauty plays a crucial role in bearing witness to the reality faced by more than half the world’s population, living and working in challenging conditions, runs through all of Valerie Leonard’s reports gathered under the title, ‘The Labors of Hercules.’” —Robert Pujade, critic and photo historian
Valerie Leonard is an award-winning French-American documentary photographer based in Arles, France. Her passion is to meet and engage with people confronting adversity in remote areas of the globe, and to share their stories through her photographs. Her captivating, beautiful work is informed by her deeply-held belief to “always tell the truth, but in terms of beauty,” a philosophy she learned from her father, photographer Herman Leonard. She aims to provoke reflection about our world of relentless development and its profound, often devastating effects on the people and environments least equipped to deal with it. She immerses herself in the lives of remote communities to earn their complete acceptance and trust before she ever takes a picture.
Two exhibitions showing consecutively at Aux Docks D’Arles will focus on two bodies of her work: Les Gardiens du Temps/The Time Keepers, which features the Baduy people of southwest Java in Indodesia, and Les Travaux D’Hercule/The Labors of Hercules, which is comprised of images of people (and some animals) all over the world who work in fields, factories, mines, and other challenging and unforgiving environments.
Les Gardiens du Temps/The Time Keepers, introduces us to the Baduy people, who believe that the world began where they live, and that therefore they are the guardians of the cosmic balance. Their community of about 13,000 members is divided into two groups, the Baduy Dalam, and the Baduy Luar. Animists, they believe that each element of the universe, whether animal, plant, stone, mountain, river, or star, harbors a powerful spirit, and consequently they feel both reverence and fear for these invisible forces. They, in turn, are protected by the Indonesian government, which respects their land and their beliefs, which pre-date the 16th-century Muslim conquest of the area.
Les Travaux D’Hercule/The Labors of Hercules includes images of hardworking people (and some animals) engaged in difficult work in harsh yet surprisingly beautiful environments around the world. This thought-provoking series honors the strength, tenacity and humanity of these individuals, who labor in obscurity far from comfortable, industrialized societies and often with no choice in the work that they do.
Valerie Leonard
Les Gardiens du Temps/The Time Keepers, July 1-14, 2024
Les Travaux D’Hercule/The Labors of Hercules, July 16-30, 2024
Aux Docks d’Arles
44, rue du Docteur Fanton
Arles
*The photographer will be on-site most days to answer questions about her work.*
