Until May 22, the photographic festival L’Oeil Urbain is being held in Corbeil Essonnes.
For its 10th anniversary, the Oeil Urbain explores the forms of commitment – with individuals, the environment, or quite simply the world in which we live.
The photographers in this edition tell personal, singular stories that echo contemporary upheavals and highlight a common narrative of humanity.
A dozen exhibitions – all within walking distance from the RER station – are available in the form of a photographic journey through several places in the city, indoors (Commanderie Saint-Jean, Municipal Art Gallery, Chantemerle Media Library, Theater) outside (forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville, Square Crété, Rue du Trou-Patrix, bandstand).
We have chosen to show you the exhibitions of four photographers: Rip Hopkins, Darcy Padilla, Guillaume Herbaut and Anne Rearick
Rip Hopkins : Odyssée 2022
(Agence VU’)
Rip Hopkins immersed himself for 15 days in Corbeil-Essonnes, for the new format of a residence in the heart of the city and with its actors: associations, municipal services, shops and places of life. He has created an original photographic series, funny and sensitive like an odyssey, in line with his Canada Canada series: in this documentary series he constructs the photographs like excerpts from North American films in the style of those of Martin Scorsese, the Cohen brothers or Brian de Palma. Each image has its own scenario and each plays its own role in its own reality, and it dives into the reality of the models. This work will be exhibited in 80 bus shelters in the city throughout the festival, in total connection with the city.
“Ralph Waldo Emerson said it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. I like the idea that an encounter is like a journey towards the other, an exchange during the photographic process that I propose. It is an intimate journey, made of mutual trust, which may only last for the time of the staging and the pose. Then it’s over. There remains a mixture of intuition and feelings that fixes the intimacy experienced during the shooting.
We all share the same perception of passing time. With photography, I imagine that I have the capacity to extend this time, to make it elastic. My photographs are the keys that allow me to reactivate the encounters and trips that I have been able to make, which structure my past as much as they define who I have become.
I am grateful for the patience and generosity of everyone who met me in Corbeil-Essonnes. During this trip that we shared, we tried together to illustrate the commitment they show. I hope they will take the same pride that I have when I look back on the path we have traveled together.” R.H.
British photographer, member of Agence VU’ since 1996, Rip Hopkins lives and works mainly in Belgium. In constant search of challenges, Rip Hopkins is looking for new near spaces of expression. With apparently banal subjects, he explores with humor and poetry the possibilities and the surprises of photography: he questions and goes beyond the limits of social representations, plays stagings and integrates them to immerse himself in the reality of others and reduce the distance between the photographer and his models. Renewing the form of visual investigations, his atypical style is located at the meeting point between documentary photography and artistic expression.
