The second edition of the Bourses Ronan Guillou is supported by M28 – Terres de culture, Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée, the Communauté d’Agglomération Hérault Méditerranée and the Ville d’Adge. These grants are initiated and organized by the Eyes Wide Open association as part of the CIVIS MARITIMUS program, in tribute to French photographer Ronan Guillou, who passed away in 2022.
Each photographer receives an endowment of 4,000€, accommodation in Sète to carry out a project combining social, cultural and ecological issues relating to humans and the marine world, and a first exhibition at Château Laurens.

Chiara Indelicato, born in Italy in 1987, is a freelance artist who divides her time between Italy and France. After an initial career in fashion and branding, she chose to devote herself entirely to photography in 2019. Her current work focuses mainly on experimenting with alternative silver-based photographic processes in harmony with her practice and her research into the documentation of isolated territories.

                                                                 © Chiara Indelicato, L’Archipel, Plage de la Conquête, Cap d’Agde, 2024

“L’ARCHIPEL”

Occitanie, a land of poetry and legends around its Etang de Thau, inspires an artistic exploration of links with the sea, highlighting current ecological issues. Through this artistic residency, the artist aims to tell a story, both visual and textual, where the poetry of the imaginary meets important themes such as ecology and the future threatened by rising waters around the territories of Sète, the Etang de Thau and the Golf du Lion.

                                                                                                                         © Chiara Indelicato, L’Archipel, 2024

Cécile Smetana was born in 1986 in a small fishing village of 2,000 inhabitants in northern Denmark. She studied art photography and photojournalism in Denmark. She then worked mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Mexico, the southern United States and France as a photojournalist and director of photography.

                                                                                                             © Cécile Smetana, Sirocco, 2024 

“SCIROCCO” 

Sirocco reaches hurricane speed and causes disruption: broken-down vehicles, storms at sea and hot, humid weather invade southern Europe. When the wind reaches southern Europe, it is known as the “bloodrain”, because of the red sand it carries. The Scirocco project aims to document invisible forces – those that have an impact on the Mediterranean coastline – from a personal perspective – the story of the artist’s paternal family, who emigrated from Algeria to France, settled in Nice and then Sète – to that of nature: storms, the heat of the sea and the eponymous wind.

                                                                                                                                 © Cécile Smetana, Sirocco, 2024 

Initiated with the support of M28 – Terres de culture, the CIVIS MARITIMUS program and the Bourses Ronan Guillou are part of this dynamic of creations and cultural initiatives on the scale of the Montpellier-Sète catchment area, uniting residents around major social, environmental and heritage challenges. Eyes Wide Open (part of The Eyes label) is committed, alongside M28 – Terres de culture, to raising awareness among as many people as possible in the area of our relationship with life, whether we observe it from the sea or with our feet on the ground.

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