Visions of engineer mountain photographers

Du 20.12.2024
au 11.05.2025
Exposition
Hors-les-murs

The exhibition "Shaping the world. Visions d'ingénieurs photographes en montagne* was conceived by Frédérique Mocquet, as part of her research activities at the OCS/AUSser laboratory (Ensa Paris-Est, Université Gustave Eiffel) in partnership with the foundation's MIRE chair and the LLSETI laboratory (Université Savoie Mont-Blanc).
It will run from December 20, 2024 to May 11, 2025 at the Maison Forte de Hautetour museum in Saint-Gervais-Mont-Blanc.

By presenting the Restoration of Mountain Terrain (RTM) project carried out in the Alps at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries through photographic archives, the exhibition offers both a historical perspective on this key episode in mountain development and a reflection on the current cultural and social issues of risk management: old representations become the vectors for a debate on the past, present and future of the mountain world. Original and reproduced old prints and archival documents are displayed alongside works by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, photographers Aurore Bagarry and Bertrand Stofleth, sculptor Catherine Bouroche and writer Emmanuelle Salasc.

Exhibition summary
From the very beginnings of photography, climbers, scientists, artists and amateurs have been exploring the Alps, bringing back images useful to both knowledge and the creation of an imaginary world of heights. The mountains are a laboratory for the arts, techniques and sciences. It is also an inhabited place, and from the end of the 19th century onwards, the French government implemented an ambitious development program to prevent natural disasters, which were a danger not only to mountain communities but also to the plains below. This program left us with thousands of images giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the landscape through the eyes of photographic engineers charged with "restoring" the land and projecting these territories into the country's future. The sublime, picturesque images of nature are matched by equally beautiful and intriguing views of the mountains at work: know-how, objects, gestures and techniques shape the earth and contribute to the creation of a modern world. At a time when the horizon of our world is troubled by global disturbances, when Mont Blanc appears as the monument of a lost nature, this exhibition offers an account of the making of the mountain. Through old photographs, archival documents and works by contemporary artists, it links past and present to help us think about the future, and affirms the power of images in fabricating new horizons of possibility.


Program around the exhibition