On July 7, the photography world descended once again on the historic city of Arles in the south of France for the 55th edition of its esteemed annual photography festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles. On show until early October, this year’s offering is particularly good, and particularly poignant. Its overarching theme is “disobedient images” – the kinds of pictures that, in an age where mainstream media holds such sway, are needed now more than ever.
Here, we select eight of the festival’s highlights (and our top pick from the coinciding Off programme), spanning a new Nan Goldin slideshow and a poignant exploration of grief by Keisha Scarville through a survey of Brazilian modernist photography and an exquisitely curated show of work by contemporary Australian image-makers.
Todd Hido: The Light From Within at Espace Van Gogh
In the upper storey of the idyllic Espace Van Gogh, a transportive, typically atmospheric exhibition by the American photographer Todd Hido makes for memorable viewing. Pictures of lonely houses and unpopulated landscapes abound, often captured through the windscreen of the photographer’s car – an effect that lends the scenes the hazy softness of a memory. Melancholic and mystical, these hang alongside collages of vintage family photographs – Hido’s reminder that, in these troubling times, it is more important than ever to “to strengthen the bonds of love with those around us, and find the potential for solace and tenacity in even the most fragile of situations”.
