A great professional photographer, Michel Lacanaud had truly developed a deep connection with heritage. Not necessarily prestigious heritage, but rather everything that helped pass on the great human adventure. What our ancestors did, what future generations will understand (let’s hope so!).
Photographer for the museums of Arles, he collaborated on numerous projects concerning the archaeology and historical evolution of Provence. He went so far as to build a true heritage archive on Fontvieille and its surroundings. For him, the humblest object could become essential to the transmission of an idea, a body of knowledge, an emotion between generations.
Photography remained the guiding thread of his entire life. I met Michel when, with a few friends, he took it into his head to create a photography festival in Fontvieille, at the gates of Arles. A true photography festival prepared, organized, installed, and run by photographers, with photographers. Something as thumbing its nose at perfidious Arles, which had just entrusted the destiny of its Rencontres Photographiques to bureaucrats, while taking care to kill off the Off for good (the real one, that of our friend Christophe Laloi).
The visceral reaction worked. A few great names agreed to begin an original adventure anew. I met Michel as a “conductor” somewhat overwhelmed in the moment. But the passion and determination of this group of friends won out. And so an exhibition of photographs of sincerity came into being to endure, I hope. The concern with transmitting, always transmitting, thousands of images and photographic documents, remained his priority.
Though ill, last week he made his way up to Oppèdes to see the images of his friend Serge Assier, then being hung.
Farewell, Monsieur Lacanaud. You will remain one of the symbols of the photographic passion that fades so quickly if we do not take care of it.
Thierry Maindrault
