For its seventh edition, the Nuit de l’Année leaves the streets of Arles and exhibits in the arenas. Magazine and agency productions, as well as photography collectives will be projected on several screens. They will feature:
AFP, Argos, Arte, Contour by Getty, Contrasto, Elle, Express Style, GQ, Hans Lucas, Bar Floréal, Le Monde Magazine, Libération, LuzPhoto, Maison de l’Europe en Géorgie, Modds’, Myop, Neus, Noor, Ostkreuz, Palm Springs Festival, Panos, Photographie.com, Picture Tank, PhotoPhomPenh Festival, Private, Prospekt, Reuters, prix SFR Jeunes Talents, Signatures, Stiletto, Temps Machine, Tendance Floue, VII, Voxpop, VU’, World Press Photo
We met Claudine Maugendre, Art Director. Claudine Maugendre has been an iconic figure of photography for over 40 years, she has been the guardian of the photographic temple at Actuel. She has worked on it, since its start with Aurélien Valette her alter ego at the Nuit de l’Année Festival in Arles. She is passionate, provocative, unbearable, incontrollable, she talks about her baby, la Nuit of this evening that will take place in the Arènes.
How did the Nuit de l’Année begin?
7 years ago, François Hébel asked me to coordinate the art direction of the Nuits de l’année. The idea was to liven up the Roquette neighborhood and to offer free projections.
Is the original idea still alive if the projections are in the Arènes and are no longer free?
At the same time, I like the change. And it will also liven up the Arènes. The screens will also be seen from outside, the passersby will see the projections backwards. In the center of the Arènes, we’ll have a bar and a dance floor, with a peak at 1 am. The space will be open until 3 am.
The Nuit de l’Année is celebrating its 7th edition, what are your favorite moments and your worst moments?
The press, they are the ones that bother the most, but there are magazines that I love like GQ for example. I needed a guy’s magazine, it’s fun and very classy. Then Reuters, they’re perfect. The fashion magazines, it’s not really my thing, but I do like Stiletto very much. They get it, they mix the “gay” features, it’s light, it’s topical. I have also discovered excellent young collectives such as Private.
How do you choose your subjects?
We avoid repetitions, last year for instance, we had two breast cancers or another year we had several anorexics. This time, we’re cutting it.
La Nuit de l’Année travels out of Arles? Can you show all of it anywhere?
No. In Cambodia, for instance, we avoid nudity and in a general manner we avoid in other countries subjects with a lot of text. But we keep the concept of Nuit de l’Année: put photography on the streets.
