Seeking the extraordinary
“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill
What if we could have reasonable confidence in the future and the faith that our children will know a world better than ours? To be fair, the current era, rocked by a series violent and unpredictable shocks, would be enough to prove the opposite.
The fact remains that the doom and gloom narrative perpetuated by the media and social media, announcing the decline and collapse of our civilisations, holds more sway than the voice of the rationalists. A will to take action and succeed needs to replace the fear and the guilt.
Overcoming our fears to sustain hope
We can use data to demonstrate the overestimation of the dangers. Extreme poverty is in the process of being eradicated. In 1990, according to the World Bank, 36% of the population lived in conditions of complete destitution. This rate has now fallen to 9%. What’s more, almost all of humanity is now literate; human health is improving, especially in the poorest countries, and the world is moving towards ever greater egalitarianism, especially in terms of income and human rights, thanks to the vigilance of the major international institutions.
As far as the environment is concerned, will we be able to change the increasingly alarming forecasts? The chairman of the IPCC himself, Hoesung Lee, believes we can do it: “Humanity has the technology and the know-how to tackle human-induced climate change.” Recent events tend to corroborate his claims: last December, for the first time, the 200 countries present at COP 28 in Dubai mentioned the objective of phasing out fossil fuels. There are solutions for this. Yes, solar and wind power do have a future, especially as the price of lithium batteries has fallen by more than 50% in ten years. Yes, we can learn to be more energy efficient. Yes, we can change what we serve on our plates. And yes, the planet with its oceans, mangroves, peat bogs and underwater forests, has a vital role to play in the climate machine. We therefore need to focus on nature.
Keeping hope alive, gaining a better understanding of the world around us so that we can better apprehend it, revealing the forces of beauty so that our capacity for wonderment remains intact – that is what La Gacilly Photo Festival has constantly strived to do, showcasing artists who question our changing world.
Australia, zooming in on a far-away land
It’s not necessarily surprising that for the 21st edition of the Festival, we’ve turned our focus to Australia, a faraway island-continent, a place often idealised for its pristine, unspoilt expanses. Behind the clichés of exoticism surrounding this country in Oceania lies a reality that we are unaware of, and that only its artists can truly capture. It boasts an enormous surface area of 7,741,200 km² (14 times the size of France) and just over 26 million inhabitants. We often imagine a dream destination, where tropical rainforests cover 17% of the country, where a coral reef is recognised as a World Heritage Site, and whose wildlife includes endemic species such as kangaroos, koalas and Tasmanian devils that captivate people the world over. The truth is more complex.
In recent years, Australia has been singled out for its unambitious climate policy: the country is the world’s leading coal exporter and second-worst polluter per capita behind Saudi Arabia. It has suffered repeated disasters. The most serious drought ever recorded in the country – lasting ten years – ended in 2020 with forest fires ravaged almost seven million hectares of forest. The flames gave way to torrential downpours, resulting in severe flooding two years running. In addition, the Great Barrier Reef, home to 25% of the planet’s marine biodiversity, is slowly facing extinction, with the seventh “mass bleaching” event since 1998 occurring in 2024. Meanwhile, the plight of the Aborigines, who inhabited this land for 60,000 years prior to the influx of settlers in the 18th century, remains dire, with their rights undermined and violated. Is there any hope though? The Australian Parliament was aware that it was lagging behind on environmental issues. It reacted with a series of positive initiatives, including a law passed in 2022 to increase its efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and finally prioritise renewable energies over coal, which supplies most of its electricity.
Poetic, unadorned photography
Committed, so fiercely devoted to their country that they can only expose its shortcomings in poetic, creative style, the Australian photographers you will discover in the alleys, gardens and streets of our Breton village capture and celebrate a land of beauty that must be preserved. Bobby Lockyer is an Aboriginal artist resolutely committed to the defence of indigenous peoples, preferring to show the dignity of their fellow humans rather than their despair. Adam Ferguson, a distinguished photojournalist, he too pays homage to this land which saw him born and traveled across the vast Australian territory, where isolated populations are at one with a hostile natural environment. Learning from the lessons of the past? That’s the message from Matthew Abbot, winner of a World Press Photo for his poignant and terrifying reports on the unprecedented fires that ravaged the island-continent in 2020.
French photographer Viviane Dalles was surely in search of answers when confronted with the vastness of this little-known territory, where the size of a farm can be the size of a French département. Narelle Autio and Trent Parke, who share a life together, have both chosen to document their native country, each in their own style. The first, considered to be one of Australia’s most collected artists, focuses on the natural elements. Her work focuses on the aesthetic element of our interactions with the world around us. Meanwhile, Trent Parke, a member of the revered Magnum agency, is considered one of the most innovative photographers of his generation. Navigating the space between poetry and black humour and treading a fine line between fiction and reality, exploring the themes of identity and the environment.
Taking us away from the boundaries of reality in radiant photographic narratives? Our Festival has always endeavoured to support inventive artists whose grace moves the soul. And this is certainly true of Anne Zahalka, while the animals she spotlights are all threatened by urbanisation and the damaging effects of climate change, she transports them into a fantasy world, using techniques inspired by the naturalists of yesteryear. Meanwhile, Tamara Dean shifts our field of vision to somewhere between dream and reality, gently and evanescently making us aware of the fragility of our ecosystems. Finally, as part of the partnership that we are proud to pursue with Agence France-Presse, a vital link in the international news chain, we will be showcasing the work of photojournalists, who offer us a glimpse of the realities experienced by the indigenous peoples of Oceania and Australia, prey to poverty, unemployment and poor housing.
Beauty and commitment through the lens
Year after year, true to our pledge to honour the natural world that sustains our existence, our Festival has become a showcase for photographers who are keen to show a reality that can be both unsettling and awe-inspiring. With America(s), we wanted to show you two visions of the United-States that are so often at odds with one another other – the city and the rural communities. It is an honour for us to be hosting an exceptional retrospective of the work of Joel Meyerowitz, a giant of contemporary photography and one of the pioneers of colour photography on an America where the megacities fascinate. As a counterpoint, we will also discover the sensitive work of the young and talented Louise Johns: she lives close to the rural populations in Montana and, in breathtaking frescoes, she depicts the vast spaces that fuel our imagination.
It’s our duty to show the reality of a world in disarray, to sound the alarm and take back control of our future. Hence, La Gacilly will feature the work of the winner of the CCFD-Terre Solidaire Photo Prize for Humanist and Environmental Photography, Italian photographer Alessandro Cinque. He will show his long-term work on the consequences of mining for the Andean populations. Another major issue for modern civilisation: how can we feed a population of eight billion people today? Photojournalist George Steinmetz, a long-standing companion of the Festival, returns to La Gacilly to answer this question in a brand new exhibition that is the outcome of ten years of research in over forty countries: Feed the Planet. Mitch Dobrowner manages to make even the most frightening scenes flamboyant of extreme weather phenomena. His images are paintings of the apocalypse, yet they are fascinating to contemplate. Through artistic and even enigmatic photographs, nature’s distress can be depicted in a way that stirs emotions. Alice Pallot is the 2024 winner of the New Takes on Environmental Photography award: her work entitled “Algues maudites”, which trains the spotlight on the spread of green algae along Brittany’s coasts, capturing the invisible in an often futuristic aesthetic.
La Gacilly is an unwavering supporter of creative photography for people with a passion for nature. The Yves Rocher Foundation has been a valuable partner of the Festival since the start, and we are thrilled to announce a new opus focused on the living sanctuaries that need to be preserved: Ulla Lohmann travelled to New Britain, a forgotten province of Papua New Guinea, to get a firsthand glimpse into the world of the volcano people, who live in complete self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, Gaël Turine, winner of the 2023 Yves Rocher Foundation Photo Award, presented in partnership with Visa pour l’Image, plunges us into the heart of the sacred forests of Benin, among the voodoo gods, the true guardians of biodiversity. And then, in Morbihan, with the support of the département’s council, artist Sophie Zénon unleashed her creativity to explore our rural heritage: last winter, she journeyed along the coastal paths and across the moors of Brittany to capture her sensitive impressions of our lesser-known treasures.
Finally, in a tribute to beauty, delicacy and poetry, an iconic photographer takes us on a journey. Tireless traveller and migrator Bernard Plossu has travelled the world since the start of his career, presents his large-format colour photographs and Fresson prints that imbue his landscapes with an otherworldly aesthetic.
France will be in a celebratory mood in the summer of 2024, as we have the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games, provide an opportunity to commemorate sports and the unity of peoples. And this summer in La Gacilly, we too will be accompanying visitors on their quest to discover the marvels of our cherished planet.
Cyril Drouhet
exhibition curator
