Chabe! magazine and the Galerie Le Bleu du ciel in Lyon presents the group exhibition Affluents with the photographers Jacques Revon, Pierre Suchet, Bastien Doudaine, and Pierre Valet. We have chosen to feature Jacques Revon‘s series on the life of boatmen on the Saône and the Rhône in Lyon in 1979, it is presented as follow.
In 1979, Jacques Revon was a photographer-technician for the Ilford company.
As part of a “Lyon Vu par” initiative, he proposed to the National Photography Foundation based in Lyon, an immersive report on “the life of boatmen on the Saône and the Rhône” both rivers crossing the city of Lyon. This intimate photographic approach was rewarded in 1980. That year, Jacques Revon became one of the 16 winners of commissions from this Foundation.
This work puts into perspective the work and life of the families of boatmen, anchored in the field of river transport. An activity that needed freedom to embark on, but most of the time in its operation, was dependent on the seasons and therefore on a fairly changeable weather, sometimes mild and sometimes rough.
The families of these professional bargemen live their daily lives along the water on their canal boats. They travel from North to South in both directions, but also head from the Center of France to the East. The mobile space of their life is quite restricted but is intended to be warm. The bargemen explain to you that river transport: “ is an ideal way to move and deliver various and bulky goods, we take our environment into account, this choice of life is also ecological”.
By chance or not of life and, much later, thirty years after having made this reportage on the Mariners, Jacques Revon carried out genealogical research. The photographer turned journalist discovered that, on his father’s side, some of his distant ancestors, originally from Roches de Condrieu, were bargemen on the Saône and the Rhône!
These black and white photographs, archived for forty-five years, are coming to light for the first time. Some of them are exhibited in Lyon at the “Le Bleu du ciel” gallery, a contemporary photography exhibition center located between the two rivers that cross Lyon, and a few steps from the Rhône.
Affluents
Jacques Revon, Pierre Suchet, Bastien Doudaine, Pierre Valet
from January 9 to March 8, 2025
Galerie Le Bleu du ciel
12 Rue des Fantasques
69001 Lyon, France
www.lebleuduciel.net
The opening in the presence of the four exhibiting photographers will take place on Thursday, January 9, 2025 at the gallery from 6 p.m.
