From July 8 to 12, Fujikina returned to the Hôtel Quiqueran de Beaujeu, right in the heart of Arles, during the Rencontres de la Photographie festival. Here’s a look back at the resounding success of this second edition.
Having made its debut in Arles last year, Fujikina quickly established itself as a must-attend event in the Rencontres de la Photographie program. Initiated by Fujifilm to promote both the art and craft of photography, the event came back for a second edition enriched with new offerings, drawing in 5,000 visitors during the opening week (compared to 3,200 the previous year).
Exhibitions, talks, sold-out workshops, portfolio reviews, equipment loans and servicing, product demonstrations… Nearly a hundred activities were offered to visitors. One photo walk, led by photographer Agathe Poupeney, explored the subtleties of dance photography. Meanwhile, Mathias Zwick of the Inland collective designed a walk through the streets of Arles, blending photography with text. Zwick also shared insights into his practice during a talk entitled “Telling the Stories of Places in Limbo”, where he spoke about his interest on latent territories and the narratives they hold.
A highlight of this edition was a conversation between renowned photographer Raymond Depardon and Matthieu Rivallin, head of the Photography Department at the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie, centered on the Magnum Photos archives. These archives are currently being brought to light through a major digitization project led by the MPP in partnership with Fujifilm. Around 650,000 slides covering the period from the 1950s to the early 2000s are gradually resurfacing, revealing their hidden stories.
To mark the occasion, an exhibition was organized at the Arena gallery, where American photographer Gregory Halpern was invited to revisit these rarely seen color archives. This continues a series of interpretive works by various photographers in previous Fujikina editions: Rafal Milach in the Czech Republic, Alec Soth in Italy, and Myriam Boulos in Belgium. In Arles, the exhibition offers a poetic immersion into Halpern’s images, mirrored by the Magnum Photos slides. The exhibition runs until August 30th!
Among the 16 Fujikina ambassadors, some took over the former classrooms of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie. Souffle Aride, a series by Laura Bonnefous on the dizzying transformation of a small Omani fishing village, was presented alongside The Silent Shore by Mathias Zwick a lesser-known vision of the Adriatic creating a dialogue within the room’s wooden architecture. Nearby, Mathias Benguigui and Jonathan Bertin paid tribute to the creative possibilities of the Instax WIDE Evo™ in a photographic patchwork of color and light.
By combining education, experimentation, and archival exploration, this second edition of Fujikina confirms Fujifilm’s commitment to fostering photography as a platform for exchange and creativity. Balancing emerging perspectives with established voices, contemporary narratives with visual memory, the event embraces a generous vision of photography one that is open to diverse practices and sensibilities.
