Two hundred years after its invention, photography continues to explore every possible way of inhabiting the world, documenting both its fractures and its transformations. Across the Plein Sud network, a wealth of exhibitions bear witness to this enduring vitality: the 200 portraits brought together at Villa Tamaris Centre d’Art in La Seyne-sur-Mer to celebrate the bicentenary of the medium; the photographs by acclaimed Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook on view at Lee Ufan Arles; and the remarkable collection of photographs by anonymous residents of Gaza, miraculously recovered and now presented at the Centre Photographique Marseille.
Elsewhere, photographs chronicling the friendship between Francis Bacon and Peter Beard at MB Art Foundation in Monaco echo the island landscapes imbued with an almost tangible solitude at Abbaye de La Celle in the Var. At Centre d’Art Campredon in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the photographic image becomes the starting point for a more intimate reflection on our relationship with others and with ourselves.
At Carré d’Art in Nîmes, Sébastien Arrighi examines the presence—or absence—of water through an installation combining archival and newly created images, while Pavillon Southway in Marseille documents the fragile habitats of the Calanques. Finally, at the Centre de la Photographie de Mougins, contemporary photography continues this ongoing dialogue between the still image, memory and new visual narratives.
Together, these exhibitions remind us that a photograph never reveals only what is visible; it also holds the stories, landscapes and unseen presences that shape our times.