Photography from Australia took centre stage in the 2025 edition of the Arles “Rencontres de la Photographie.” We saw images showing us a dynamic of change and cultural translation. Indeed, the 2025 edition brings us “disobedient” images. Centre stage was taken and an icon of this years’ edition was an image of the series of Tony Albert and David Charles Collins, depicting a young (indigenous) superhero Kieran Lawson, amidst the beautiful desert country in that region.
Les Rencontres de la photographie in Arles is a “must” every year for everyone who is even remotely interested in photography or in the images that depict our today’s world.
As everybody knows, we have all transformed photography through the images we now produce with our phones. Thousands of photos now accompany us: notes, surroundings, and things to remember, of ourselves and our families. The immediate and complete connection with social media changed and narrowed the boundaries of street photography, but its ever-present presence by so many actors/photographers also widened the coverage of all thinkable subjects and events, notably wars, conflicts and natural and social disasters.
Also the barrier between amateur and professional photographers is ever-narrowing, as the technical capacities of smartphones have changed the media world forever.
What does this mean for photo festivals and events, which will give us insight into the present nature, content, and impact of photography?
We could admire a series of portraits in a series called “Portrait of a Distant Land” by Ricky Maynard.
We visited the “Rencontres de de la photographie” in Arles this summer, and we saw images showing us a dynamic of change and cultural translation. Indeed, the 2025 edition brings us “disobedient” images. Photography is here seen as an instrument of resistance, testimony, and social transformation in the face of contemporary crises.
We started our visit in the Eglise Saint Anne, erected in the 1600s on the ruins of an older church, the building stands as a testament to the 17th century’s austere Late Gothic style. Here we saw the exhibition “On Country, Photography from Australia.” The term “Country” is embodied by First Peoples in Australia to describe the lands, waterways, seas, and cosmos to which they are connected. As the organizers describe it, being “on Country” is more than just being situated somewhere; it is about being shaped by that place, connected to it, and having a responsibility to care for it.
The exhibition is co-produced by the Rencontres d’Arles and PHOTO Australia, Melbourne. Not less than 17 indigenous and non-indigenous artists are presenting their work on this theme, and one is impressed by the excellence of their creations. They portray the multiple ways indigenous and non-indigenous people connect to “Country”.
The intriguing portraits by Australian photographer Maree Clarke of 84 people in her series “Ritual and Ceremony” embody “Country” in the naturally sourced white ochre painted on the women’s faces. Her work offers us a better understanding of the indigenous connections to “Country”…
The curators amongst others are Alias Redstone, the founder/Artistic Director at PHOTO Australia, and Kimberley Moulton (a Yorta Yorta woman). She is Adjunct Curator Indigenous Art at Tate Modern and Senior Curator at RISING Festival, and Curator Emeritus at Museums Victoria.
We were also struck by a series of portraits in a series called “Portrait of a Distant Land” by Ricky Maynard.
This series is a deeply personal exploration of his community and the “Country, ” which is here Lutruwita/Tasmania, and it serves as a testament to the resistance and survival of his people. It acknowledges the devastating impacts of colonization on the Lutruwita/Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
We show you here the image where the artist stands in the water on Flinders Island, where his Ancestors were forcibly moved 160 years ago. Looking toward the horizon, Maynard places himself in dialogue with “Country…”
The artist is born in 1953, lives on Truwana/Cape Barren Island in Australia.
On the ceiling of the Eglise Sainte Anne we could admire the cyanotypes of Elisa Jane and Sonja Carmicheal, depicting, stars, skies and rivers flowing in the land.
Remarkable is also the series of Tony Albert and David Charles Collins. A really important series which also delivered the selected photo of the 2025 Arles edition.
It is a photo of a young super hero, Kieran Lawson, amidst the beautiful desert country in that region.
Having said this, the Australian nation is a shared space of multifaceted histories and stories, and although colonialism has attempted to suppress First Nations People, their culture has continued and is strong and living today. As the curator Kimberly Moulton put it, “we are not living in the past, we are a living culture, we are here NOW.”
Travel photos…through the past and today…
We are always fascinated by travel photography. Don’t we all try to capture it on our camera’s and phones? It is the magical task to put the experience of travel in images.
We were intrigued by the exibition “US Route 1”. Indeed, between July and September ‘54, American photographer Berenice Abott drove back and forth along Route 1, the US oldest road. She found that this route offered a “realistic picture” of a true cross-section of American Life. She had the creation of a picture book in mind. We show here some of her beautiful photos, which makes us truly nostalgic when we see them, and we really cannot get enough of it.
But here comes the interesting “clou” of this exhibit. Between 2016 and 2019, two photographers, Anna Fox and Karen Knorr, drove from Key West to Atlanta, and then from Washington DC back to Atlanta. They later visited New York, Rhode Island and Providence (2017) and later Baltimore and Philadelphia, and finally Maine back to Florida in 2024. Fox and Knorr with their work questioned the current significance of Route 1, now much quieter and decidedly not a “mainstream” route anymore.
They used different formats and technologies, from smartphones to large format cameras, prolonging and actualizing the in-depth photographic study of Berenice. Who wouldn’t dream of doing this too?
Here we close the first part of this report on the stunning Arles 2025 edition. Much more to follow soon…
Hans Knol ten Bensel
