Exhibition to mark the second edition of the Ronan Guillou GRANT

The second edition of the Ronan Guillou Bursary 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 a prize 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 1987 in Italy

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”

Cécile Smetana was born in Denmark in 1986.

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 “Scirocco”

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 the awareness of as many people as possible in the area about our relationship with life, whether we observe it from the sea or with our feet on the ground.