Would you like to spend a few precious moments of your life inside an exceptional bubble? Step right now into the magical atmosphere of Vieil Oppède.
This ancient Provençal village is unique in every one of its stones, in the air you breathe there, and in its inhabitants rooted in this Provençal earth. Imagine that even the cemetery is listed as a historic monument. Everything has remained coherent and draws you into another world, for the duration of a visit.
Why does Vieil Oppède turn up in your photography magazine? For our extraterrestrial of photography : Serge Assier. Serge was born at the inn of Vieil Oppède, at his grandparents’, a somewhat complicated family — which certainly explains his picaresque and fascinating trajectory. In broad strokes, our colleague began as a shepherd before becoming a taxi driver (not just anywhere — in Marseille). By vocation, he became a press photographer, and remained, among other things, an accredited photographer at the Cannes Film Festival for twenty years. He abandoned cinema’s stars for literature and became a friend of the greatest: René Char, Edmonde Charles-Roux, Fernando Arrabal, Michel Butor, Bernard Noël, Marguerite Yourcenar, Jean Roudaux, Jean-Charles Tachella. He went on to travel the world with his photographs and his cameras — all of this alongside his medical photography work, in operating theatres, documenting the greatest advances in surgery. He has never stopped for a single second, except every year to exhibit at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles.
For forty years, until last year, under the insufferable and irritated glare of the so-called “official” organisers, every year Serge Assier presented his work and the excellent photographs of his friends. It goes without saying that all those forty years of presence were funded entirely at his own expense — such is photography and its authentic practitioners.
For once, I shall spare you a commentary on the merits of almost every one of his many images, which he froze for history (film was expensive, and the cost of error prohibitive). The entire profession is delighted — the grumblers aside, naturally — that the French State has taken charge of the treasures of his photographic archive through the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie.
It is then that a breath of nostalgia brings our “arpenteur à l’œil perçant” — our surveyor with the piercing eye — back to the village of his ancestors, every corner of which he knows intimately. It is thus that the local community decided to honour this son of the soil by exhibiting his works and pairing his photographs with texts by his writer friends. What moving photographic images and timeless texts await the visitors.
It is a pity that all these panels displayed beneath the village hall do not quite do justice to the works on offer. Even relying on volunteers, the event’s producer could have been more attentive to the scenography and presentation of these exhibitions — particularly given their subject and content. Serge Assier had accustomed us to great quality in his Arles exhibitions, and one cannot help feeling disappointed that he did not intervene in this case to salvage the situation. On the essential point, however, he will be physically present on site throughout the summer to satisfy your curiosity. His unpredictable southern ebullience will carry you through a host of hilarious adventures and incredible personal encounters, far removed from your everyday existence and beneath other skies. A true feast for the spirit!
The photographs, the photographer and the old village each merit a detour. With the three combined, a visit is simply self-evident.
Thierry Maindrault
Serge Assier : Exposition Photographique et Littéraire
Listed under the Bicentenary of Photography heritage programme
Halle La Croix, Jardin de Lizzie et Terrasses Sainte-Cécile
Village — 84580 Vieil Oppède, France
1 July – 30 September 2026
Open daily 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
