beaux livres : photo, architecture, art

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Révéler les lieux

From traditional Brie farms to garden cities, from artists’ studios to train stations, from holiday homes to open-air theaters, the “Regional Heritage of Interest” label, created in 2017 by the Île-de-France Region, highlights a heritage that is often overlooked, unusual, yet essential. It distinguishes those places that shape the unique character and identity of the region. It invites Parisians to rediscover, just steps from their homes, the landscape of their everyday lives: a mosaic of places revealing a region of astonishing diversity, where rural life, industry, and leisure activities interact with modern architecture.

This new volume in the Re-inventory collection offers a photographic journey through a selection of more than seventy sites, an invitation to wander and admire often-overlooked places.

Travail vidéoludique, travail idyllique ?

While discussions about video games generally focus on their economic impact, as the world’s leading cultural industry, or on the supposed risks associated with playing them (addiction, violence), they rarely mention the conditions under which these works are produced, which are now firmly embedded in our daily lives. This book therefore sets out to examine the relationship between video games and work, focusing on those who make these games, whether professionally or as amateurs, the conditions under which they are developed, and the other labor-intensive activities that rely on these creations (esports, journalism, streaming).

In a sector marked by constant growth, but also by an unprecedented employment crisis, it seeks to document the working conditions within this cultural industry: from the history of video games to the gaming “ecosystem,” including the ethical, social, and political issues it raises, this book offers an in-depth look at the debates that animate, disrupt, and shake up the relationship between work and video games, studying its past, documenting its present, and developing ideas for its future.

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Flavie Falais

Doctorante au sein du laboratoire EHIC de l’Université de Limoges, sous la direction de Loïc Artiaga.

Sa recherche doctorale porte sur la fabrique des sexualités vidéoludiques (représentations, discours et conditions de production), dans une perspective historique et info-communicationnelle. Elle s’intéresse plus largement à l’histoire du jeu vidéo, ses imaginaires médiatiques et ses approches critiques.

L’esprit du lieu

Located in the heart of the University City of Madrid, the Casa de Velázquez, a French institution inaugurated in 1928, was created to host artists and researchers in residence.

During his residency at the Casa de Velázquez between 1993 and 1994, photographer Max Armengaud focused his gaze and his lens on the place and its inhabitants.
Thirty years later, between 2023 and 2024, he returned for a new series of photographs, following the same protocol. The portrait of the institution is a portrait of those who live and work there. Everyone is represented: the staff, the management, the residents, and the scholarship recipients… The photographer captures the intimate connections that are forged between the space and those who inhabit it.
To fully capture the spirit of the place, the artist meticulously explored the various spaces of the Casa: interiors and exteriors, public and private, from the most visible to the most secluded. Each subject is given equal weight. A strong sense of unity emerges, affirming the institution’s enduring presence. The portraits, exclusively in black and white, alternate with photographs of the premises, the most recent of which are in color, a medium that has only appeared in Max’s work for about fifteen years.

Pop’africa

Pop’Africa retraces forty years of travels across the African continent. Myriam Viallefont-Haas has always taken an artistic and committed look at a rich and complex Africa. That of refugees in Somalia, that of the struggle for independence in Namibia, that of the daily life of the Maasai people and the protection of the Maasai Mara in Kenya. This desert Africa, mysterious, traditional, but also modern, vibrant, and independent, which she renews our view of thanks to her eye as a photographer and artist in these painted photographs. Her works are like windows opening onto Africa, where each color and each texture tells of the challenges and beauty of this continent. Her photographs, paintings, and painted photos merge in her creative universe, where she combines the brush with the lens. “When I take a photo, I see a painting,” explains the artist, who loves photography for its speed, and painting for its slowness and meditative nature…

Rio Praia

Rio Praia, one of two volumes in a diptych dedicated to Rio (the second being Rio Centro), focuses on these endless stretches of sand, from Copacabana, the most popular, to Prainha, a surfer’s paradise away from the city. The beaches in Rio are a veritable agora where people party and play sports, where everything mixes and mingles in a welcoming atmosphere. They are a true social melting pot where everyone comes together: the bourgeoisie of Leblon, the kids from the favelas, municipal employees, couples sipping coconut juice at the end of a day’s work…Rio lends itself well to Jean-Christophe Béchet’s photographic writing, in which the documentary spirit escapes into a form of poetry.

Rio Centro

Rio Centro, one of two volumes in a diptych dedicated to Rio (the second being Rio Praia), is a subjective, intimate portrait of the heart of the city, as lively during the day as it is deserted and dangerous at night, when the offices are closed.
Nearby are the neighborhoods of Santa Teresa, Lapa, Botafogo, Flamengo, Gávea… places where street photography is the perfect tool for capturing a dark and contrasting world. Rio lends itself well to Jean-Christophe Béchet’s photographic writing, in which the documentary spirit escapes into a form of cinematic poetry that leaves reality in suspension…

Gestes et rituels de la chambre noire

Michel Campeau is one of those photographers who, in addition to creating their own images, have always been passionate about so-called “vernacular” photography, whether anonymous or family-based. He belongs to a generation of photographers that includes Martin Parr, Erik Kessel, Joachim Schmidt, and others, who, through their focus on these neglected images, have created a genre in their own right… For many years, Michel Campeau has been scouring the vastness of globalized image production for amateur and professional photographic prints to feed the various collections he has established.
Thus, darkrooms, which could be considered a kind of original cave of photography, have always been one of his most important collectibles, certainly because they help to reflect his own image, the self-portrait of a creator whose gaze was forged by the silver-based photography that appeared in the darkness of the darkroom, full of magic and substance, which the transition to digital photography has driven away.
From the hundreds of images he has collected, Michel Campeau has created a veritable encyclopedia in Gestes et rituels de la chambre noire (Gestures and Rituals of the Darkroom), spanning more than a century of photography, organized by theme, deconstructing the components of the darkroom: the enlarger, the timers, the lamps, the retouching, the traveling photographers…
The book masterfully plays with a montage of images and is interspersed with texts by the artist.

Vert Paradis

Nestled in the heart of the French Vexin park, the Villarceaux regional estate invites visitors to stroll and daydream. Listed as a historic monument, this little-known gem is home to a unique collection of buildings dating from the 14th to the 19th centuries, and seventy hectares of exceptionally rich gardens, labeled as a Remarkable Garden.