The first good news is that the 18th edition of La Gacilly Festival has just opened. The second good news is that this 2021 edition is called “Plein Nord”, and therefore is a tribute to Scandinavian photography. So, Monsieur Bernard, as a loyal visitor to this highly recommendable event, strongly suggests that you plan a weekend in Brittany.
Let’s sleep in La Gacilly
Two charming options in quite different styles: La Grée des Landes, the chic and green eco-hotel spa from Yves Rocher, and the Manoir de Trégaray, a beautiful Breton manor converted into guest rooms.
La Grée des Landes
La Grée des Landes, the Yves Rocher eco-spa hotel, offers 28 sober and classic rooms with all the comfort expected from a 4-star: 1 “prestige” suite, 3 “plant” suites and 1 cabin in the middle of the trees.
Le Manoir de Trégaray
A few minutes from La Gacilly, the Manoir de Tregaray is also a very good choice. Rooms like grandmother’s in the manor house and more design / rustic in the cottage.
Friday’s evening dinner
Who says Brittany says galette. So, no questions to ask, Friday evening dinner at Bar Breton.
Saturday at La Gacilly
Tiina Itkonen (Finland), place de la Ferronnerie
It was with a passion for the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and their culture that Tiina Itkonen left for Greenland in the 1990s. The beginning of a long adventure. And an excellent introduction to your day devoted to Nordic photography.
Since her first trip, a part of Tiina Itkonen has always remained in Greenland, the world’s second-largest ice cap after Antarctica. With her numerous trips there, the photographer has learnt the basics of the local language to communicate with the people in front of her lens. In 2004, after a third two-month trip to the country, she published her first book on the Inughuit community, a Greenland Inuit minority in the Thule region, who were nomadic for centuries but gradually settled during the 20th century. Tiina Itkonen travels the Greenland coast, crossing the hazardous icy lands on a sleigh or sailboat, or in a helicopter, plane or tanker, doing whatever she can to reach the tiny villages lost at the tip of the ice and to record the daily life, habits and customs of the Greenlandic people.
Having earned international recognition for this work, the photographer continues to pursue her projects around the Arctic, focusing a little more on how landscapes are evolving with global warming and the influence that humans are having on this place where the sky meets the ice.
Sune Jonsson (Sweden), at Jardin de l’Aff
A few dozen meters further on, a change of scenery and atmosphere in the Jardin de l’Aff with Swedish Sune Jonsson. Born in 1930 in Nyäker, a lost village on the Swedish plains, Sune Jonsson follows in the direct line of social and documentary photography. The exhibition entitled “Swedish Memories”, produced in collaboration with the Västerbotten Museum, immerses us in a Sweden that fans of the great Ingmar will find not without a touch of nostalgia.
If critics rightly compare him to Walker Evans, in Sune Jonsson’s images we also find similarities with the ones of Robert Doisneau or Willy Ronis. Strongly influenced by the work of photographers from the Farm Security Administration (FSA), who had documented from the late 1930s rural American poverty during the Great Depression, Sune Jonsson set out to create a testimony similar across the Atlantic.
Thus, for half a century, he will immortalize the society of the province of Västerbotten where he comes from. A region far from the capital Stockholm, where he studied in the 1940s, when his family moved there. Returning to his native lands, he sees them with new eyes. An intellectual and poetic look that will allow him to tenderly encapsulate a fragment that has now disappeared from Swedish society.
Jonas Bendiksen (Norway), at the Jardin du Relais Postal
A few steps away, in the garden of the Relais Postal, you will discover the photographs of Jonas Bendiksen. And here again, the contrast is striking. The Norwegian photojournalist, a regular on National Geographic pages and a member of the Magnum agency since 2004, has documented an ecological disaster that threatens an entire way of life: the melting of the Himalayan glaciers.
In 60 years, China’s largest glacier in the Qilian Mountains has retreated some 500 metres. The same phenomenon has been observed on most of the 40,000 glaciers perched atop the world’s highest peaks around the Tibetan plateau. These glaciers make up the largest freshwater reserve in the world, forming the headwaters of mythical rivers such as the Indus, Mekong, Yangtze and Ganges. In all, more than two billion people depend on this water to survive. Here, rising water levels do not come from below, as is the case with the melting of the two ice caps and the Arctic, but are instead descending from the Roof of the World. A rigorous observer of the turmoil in our changing world, Bendiksen is also the quiet scribe of a much calmer daily life. In Vesterålen, for example, in the north of his home country of Norway, where he was hired by a local newspaper and produced an intimate body of work that brilliantly captures the atmosphere and identity of this remote region and its inhabitants. This exhibition juxtaposes these two series and their diametrically opposed focal points.
Helena Blomqvist (Sweden), rue La Fayette
Then go up rue La Fayette where the photos of Helena Blomqvist are displayed. Intriguing ? Creepy ? Charming ? Poetic? Contemplative? Disturbing? It is a bit of a tumult of contradictory feelings that embraces the viewer in front of the works of Helena Blomqvist.
To produce her burlesque, delirious compositions, the Swedish photographer first creates images on paper in her small studio in Södermalm, Stockholm. “I always sketch out my ideas before I start,” she says. “Then I build my sets and models. I sew clothes, rent accessories, contact models, etc.”
She confirms that she spends more time preparing her image and then digitally editing it than she does behind her camera. Some of these scenes require several months of work before the shutter button is pressed.
Jonathan Näckstrand (Sweden), rue La Fayette
The North, Jonathan Näckstrand, AFP photographer based in Stockholm, has traveled it back and forth. While browsing its archives, a common thread emerges in an obvious way. All these countries are sentinels, among the first to feel the effects of global warming. “Whether it’s covering the Sámi people who are having to change their lifestyles because of rising temperatures, car races on snow that can no longer take place or Greenland’s glaciers breaking off into the sea with global warming, we cannot deny the obvious.” Having become acclimatised to the cold, these territories must now deal with its gradual waning.
Olivier Morin (France), rue La Fayette
Olivier Morin, editor-in-chief of AFP’s photo department, formerly based in Stockholm and lover of Scandinavian countries, photographs extreme surfers, who practice their passion in waters bordering on 3° c, in the middle of snow-covered fjords.
Conditions such as these force photographers to adapt, both logistically and psychologically. Leaving equipment in the cold when not at work to prevent misting, choosing a diving suit that is warm enough to work in but light enough to be able to move quickly if there’s suddenly a problem… “It’s a whole routine that you learn as you go along,” explains Morin. “The first time I went into the water with my camera, I had to stop working after 10 minutes.” From freedivers and ice divers to surfers, he captures the intimate relationship between these somewhat crazy athletes and the extreme cold. “They don’t suffer, and neither do I,” Morin concludes. “It’s fun, more than anything! Real and authentic.”
Nick Brandt (United Kingdom), at the Garage
We are leaving the far north for Africa. Because, in addition to its “Plein Nord” theme, La Gacilly, as usual, devotes part of its programming to environmental issues. Among the photographers featured in this section titled “The World of Tomorrow”, Nick Brandt is featured in the always spectacular Garage exhibition. For a long time now, the British photographer has alerted the world to the dangers of hunting and poaching on African wildlife, which he defends through his commitment and his NGO, Big Life Foundation.
With his new series, “This Empty World”, Nick Brandt goes into color and denounces the rampant urbanization which leads to the loss of natural habitats for animals: the main threat today to ecosystems. In photographs where dystopia borders on surrealism, elephants, rhinos, lionesses and giraffes wander aimlessly amid sets created from scratch by Nick Brandt and his teams. Images produced without any other special effects than the superposition of two shots.
Saturday’s evening dinner
So, since you are in Brittany and your Friday night pancake night didn’t stop you from pursuing the theme, try Le Mouchoir de Poche, the other “crêperie” that is the pride of La Gacilly.
But if you are not afraid by a 50 minutes drive and you have a double desire to see the sea and have an excellent dinner, head to Vannes. Empreinte deserves a detour, as they say in the Michelin Guide. In a typically british wallpaper decor, fifties chairs and tables in black terrazzo, Marine Fournier, former decorator, warmly welcomes you before serving you the menus (40 or 50 €) coooked by her husband Baptiste (ex-Bras and Trap) and local product guaranteed. If you can’t resist a few glasses of wine and none of you are willing to sacrifice yourself to stay sober and ensure the return journey, you can also choose the “I dine at Empreinte on Friday evening when I get out of my TGV and I sleep at the Ibis Style at Vannes station before taking my rental car to go to La Gacilly on Saturday morning ” option.
Sunday at La Gacilly
Erik Johansson (Sweden), at Grand Chêne
“I want to create photos that force the viewer to stop for a few seconds to understand where the trick is.” The closer you look at Erik Johansson’s photos, the less you’ll understand them. When he discovered photography at the age of 15, the artist quickly imagined a principle that would influence his entire career. When, for many photographers, the creative process stops after pressing the shutter button, this is where it all begins for this passionate amateur of art and drawing.
His technique? Combine several images that have nothing to do with each other to create surreal, even wacky paintings, with, as a link between the works, this environmental awareness. “I prefer to capture an idea rather than a moment,” said the 36-year-old Swede. “You have to create a reality puzzle,” explains the photographer. “You have to ask yourself what creates an illusion. Then, we assemble different pieces to create alternate realities. The images must have the same perspective, the same light, the same contrast. You have to make reading the final image as complicated as possible, ”concludes Erik Johansson. “The viewer must not be able to find where the original photo begins. Like a good magic trick.
Pentti Sammallahti (Finland), at Prairie
Pentti Sammallahti’s photos are gems. Not only because his contemplative images are brimming with poetry, but also because the Finnish photographer is a real virtuoso behind the camera.
For him, black and white never means flat monochrome, with suffocated blacks and blinding whites. Quite the contrary: in his images, the shades of grey form an infinite palette of bright colours that he uses to compose his shots.
The lensman has established himself as one of the great living masters of black and white and is best known for his outstanding work featuring the landscapes of his homeland, where wonderfully simple, pared-down beauty vies with the splendour of Japanese prints. Here, however, the full diversity of his work is on show. A selection of images that, whether focused on animals or human beings, are always infused with an innate empathy. Photographs with universal grammar and vocabulary, whose humour and humanity speak to all generations.
Sammallahti was born in Helsinki to a family of artists: his father was a silversmith and his grandfather was the Swedish photographer Hildur Larsson. A family heritage that explains both his unique eye, fostered by an unparalleled photographic culture, and his painstaking love of detail and refinement. His talent refuses to restrict itself to any one genre, style or format. The artist does away with such barriers to embrace photography as a whole, using it to nourish his imagination and his deep sensitivity.
Tine Poppe (Norway), at Labyrinthe Végétal
2020 may have kept Tine Poppe physically confined, but her creative force remained as free as ever! Restricted in her movements by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Norwegian photographer embarked on a special photographic experiment, collecting bouquets of flowers that would otherwise have been thrown away. “Visibly faded, drained and neglected, the imperfections of each flower told a story, revealed a character, expressed something that provoked empathy.” This series, known as Precious, complements other projects by this artist, who has received many awards and exhibited in several collections.
In Psychedelic Perceptions, the photographer also centred her reflections around plants in a tribute to the 1960s summers of love, the high point of hippie culture and the psychedelic movement. Celebrating the anniversary of the term ‘flower power’ coined by poet Allen Ginsberg, this series takes a look at weeds and wildflowers from an ant’s perspective.
In Rearrange, she explores urban and forest landscapes bathed in hazy and dreamlike atmospheres. The exhibition here opens with one of those images. A path criss-crossing through the grass and winding between majestic trees. The beginning of a photographic journey in three essays that reveal how we look at nature. Three essays like three different musical scales. Like verdant variations.
Ragnar Axelsson (Iceland), at the Labyrinthe Végétal
For Ragnar Axelsson, winter is not coming: winter has always been here. The man known simply as ‘Rax’ was born in Iceland in March 1958 – in the depths of winter, fittingly. His has been a life of ice, blizzards and piteraq, the katabatic wind that sweeps over the Arctic polar ice cap and howls over the icy steppes of Greenland and Iceland. The same wind that constantly blows through Axelsson’s photos.
He has taken photographic possession of this sublime white yet hostile world. For over thirty years, he has strived to document every aspect of these frozen lands, where the people of the extreme cold live in harmony with the area’s wildlife. His exemplary work on sled dogs underscores how the potential extinction of this iconic animal threatens the very survival of the traditional Inuit 4,000-year-old way of life. With unrivalled mastery of black and white, which he uses not as a short cut to aesthetics but as a form of photographic syntax to shape his narrative, ‘Rax’ captures with equal mastery the snow-bitten jaws of a wolf-dog and the windblown face of a hunter wandering along a wave-drenched, gale-swept Dyrhólaey beach.
Axelsson has worked as a photojournalist for the daily Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið since 1976, and alternates long-term projects with more ad-hoc reports for the newspaper. He is currently in the midst of creating an extensive series on the eight Arctic countries, where the effects of global warming are increasingly devastating. A photographic journey deep into the cold.
Sanna Kannisto (Finland), at Labyrinthe Végétal
To produce her bird portraits, Sanna Kannisto travelled from Finland to Lake Baikal in Russia via South America and even Italy. It is, however, impossible to tell where you are when you look at these images of birds posed in front of an unchanging white background. They are reminiscent of the illustrations in 16th century scientific works, or paintings where the backdrop has been removed.
And there’s an easy enough explanation: all these photographs were taken in a portable studio set-up that Kannisto takes with her on all her ornithological observation trips. Once the birds have been captured by professionals, she has them pose for a brief portrait session. They are fed and watered, then quickly released back into the wild. Her almost Darwinian work – where photography meets scientific observation – reveals the birds in a new and unexpected light.
Like any scientific journal worth its salt, each photograph is accompanied by the Latin name of the species photographed. By taking them out of their natural habitat, the lens captures the birds and offers them to us, free of distraction, to reveal their stunning plumage, the sublime details of their anatomy and the countless shapes of their beak.
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