For this 6th edition, the festival Mesnographies reaffirms its commitments. Claire Pathé has chosen to focus on incest, under the title “Je te crois” (“I believe you”). We are presenting the testimonies of 7 photographers selected through an open call. The 70 applications we received speak to the urgency and necessity of breaking the silence surrounding these hidden forms of violence.
In connection with this focus, the Enfants Kintsugi Foundation is the patron of this edition.
Eleven photographic works with open themes accompany the focus. They are the result of encounters and research by the artistic director throughout the year. On the basis of this research, our volunteers vote for the final selection during an annual evening event.
This new edition of the Mesnographies festival invites the public to explore intimacy through varied paths: always deeply human, these paths are at times jarring, unsettling, funny or absurd.
From Ukraine to Australia, by way of Sudan and Italy, the photographers question our relationship to memory, youth, joy and suffering, revealing fragments of life that are at once ordinary and extraordinary. Some respond to the violence of the world with a smile, a touch of irony, a defiant gesture in the face of death. Others probe old wounds, embedding in their images the full weight of a long-standing malaise: abandonment, colonialism, war and exile.
The festival also gives considerable space to our planet in crisis: fires that devour, water that is lacking or that suddenly overflows, the visible traces of climate change. So many visual narratives that together shape a sensitive panorama of our era.
The works addressing climate change are presented under the title Le jardin n’est pas clos (“The Garden is Not Closed”). These exhibitions have been taking place for 5 years in the Parc des Mesnuls and in the surrounding villages, in the form of outdoor installations beyond the main venue.
In response to current events, students from the Lycée Jean Monnet chose to explore the theme of immigration for the photography workshops led by Claire Pathé during the school year.
Mesnographies – edition #6
Parc municipal des Mesnuls, 13 Grande Rue, 78490 Les Mesnuls
Open Monday to Sunday, free admission
www.mesnographies.com
