Transit

Based in Montpellier since 11 years and currently composed of seven photographers and of a project manager, the transit collective carries the will of a demanding generation on the directions and the practice of photography.

While most of the photographers carry out individual projects, their vision converge in the subjects they choose and the way they document them. Avoiding complacency and aggressivity, they offer a lucid, at times humorous and poetic, look that tries to make an off-kilter portrait of a world to which they participate.

 http://espacetransit.blogspot.fr/

 Des rives, France / Sénégal.

 Today, no shore can get away from human planning. Its changes are obviously visible in the industrial estates and the seaside resorts both protected by seawalls. The present mutation is also inherent in the demarcation and the management of preserved natural areas. Following systematically the 7000 km of the French coast, I walk between ground and sea, I sought lights, submerging myself, observing. I depicted a border from which the natural side remains only in the name. The 'des rives' project, still in progress, has been initiated in 2004 on the french coastline.

 For the Resilience Conference, I produced new pictures on the Senegal coastline. Working with a team of researchers, we defined themes and places to be depicted. We then made together a selection of pictures, focusing on the vulnerability of the French and Senegalese coasts as a result of climate change, through a dual look at the two countries. This exhibition is the result of this artistic and scientific collaboration.

Biography Bastien Defives

 After an engineering school, a stay in Brazil, Bastien Defives joined the transit photographic collective in Montpellier in 2002. His attention mainly focuses on the relations between man and nature: management, integration, destruction... His current work in progress is called “des rives” (“banks”), a photographic project aiming at documenting the state of the French coasts in their entirety. He works with the press (assignments and diffusion in publication such as Le Monde, Télérama, GEO…), and with institutions (such as CIRAD, Conservatoire du littoral…).

Bastien currently lives and works in Dakar (Sénégal).

 www.bastien-defives.fr

 News from Gazistan

 News from Gazistan is a possible picture of what may happen if shale gas were to be extracted in the region.

 We are a team of two, formed by a journalist and a photographer. In 2011, we imagined a world, a fictional France in which shale gas would be exploited. This series is called “News from Gazhistan”. It has already been exhibited and published, and participates in raising general awareness of the environmental changes linked to our way of life. Today, we wish to pursue this project, to complete the series with images that talk about the changes expected in the agricultural world.

 I am Alexa Brunet, a 35 years old photographer. I first studied a the Art College in Belfast, and at the ENSP in Arles after that. I am part of the photographers' collective Transit since 2002 and work mainly for the press and institutions. At the same time, I work in France and abroad on projects about “image” in collaboration with artists and writers. I am regularly invited to exhibit and take parti in residency programmes for photographers (Niort, Prix des Pyrénées Atlantiques, Diaphane).

In 2007, I published “Post, ex-Yugoslavia” with Florence Vialettes (published by Le bec en l’air); in 2012, “Unusual Dwellers” with my sister Irène (published by Images en Manoeuvres); and, in 2011, “In the Somme” (Diaphane). My pictures are distributed by the photo agency Picturetank. I live with my husband, who is a farmer, in the middle of a rural area steeped in ancient traditions. This has allowed me to notice environmental changes at a local level.

 http://www.alexabrunet.com

 I am Patrick Herman, journalist and farmer. I am a baby-boom child, born in 1948 into a family of teachers. I should have continued this tradition, but after celebrating my 20th birthday in the Quartier Latin and teaching for several years, I left for the South of France, where I took over some fallow land and became a farmer. I should have dedicated myself full-time to this job, but the house needed to be repaired, so I also became a builder, an electrician, a roofer. I was meant to finish it quite quickly, but I took a train to Milan, where I discovered the archives of the Seveso disaster and decided to become a journalist instead. This was in the early 1990s. Since then, I have worked with many magazines and newspapers (L'écologiste, Revue XXI, Le Monde Diplomatique) and published a few books (Numéro d'écrou, lettre au détenu José Bové, La bio entre business et projet de société, La roue, seasonal agricultural workers). I an independent journalist, I choose my own projects and take my time to work on them.

This is a free entry event, open to public.

The exibition will take place at the Maison des relations internationales, Montpellier

You can access the exhibition :

• Monday: 2pm to 6pm
• Tuedsay: 9am to 12am and 2pm to 6pm
• Wednesday: from 9am to 6pm non stop