This year marks La Gacilly Photo Festival’s 15W birthday. Over this time, it has won a signi cant place in the world of photography, both in France and internationally.
Its founding principle is as relevant as ever: to express, through a camera lens, the major environmental and social issues which arise. Over 15 years, La Gacilly has welcomed 3.3 million people, proving – if proof were needed – that culture attracts visitors to rural regions.
Whether it comes in the form of constructions, culture or nature, our heritage is only as important as the value we place on it and the uses we make of it. It is not just about exhibiting signi cant objects and visiting high-quality places, but the meaning and symbolism these objects and places embody. In our modern world, experts are no longer the only ones to decide what heritage is – society itself also makes this judge- ment. Heritage now encompasses alternative places and events that are meaningful to everybody, such as ex-industrial areas, redesigned urban spaces, festivals and districts with a rich seam of street art.
La Gacilly Photo Festival draws its strength from its relationship with the public. It perfectly illustrates how our de nition of heritage has broadened, leading to greater recognition for new heritage areas. While the Festival has become a renowned tourist destination, nationally and internationally, for all kinds of different people visiting Brittany, it remains an event that those of us living in Western France feel compelled to revisit year after year. For 15 years, La Gacilly Photo Festival has invited local residents and tourists to enjoy a truly enriching experience with family or friends, in a setting imbued with a sense of celebration, authenticity and meaning. Last year, more than 320,000 people of all ages visited the event.
Because it tackles key social issues through art and aesthetics, La Gacilly Photo Festival is resolutely in step with our times. This year, it is boldly bringing about “Question Time for Earth” as part of a thorough interrogation of the world we live in. We invite visitors to use their mind and their senses to explore our Earth, to listen to it whisper its endlessly layered song and to feel its pulsing vibration. Let’s dare to look further, to gaze at both the in nitely huge and the in nitesimally small, crossing time and space as we do so. Let’s work to uncover the reality that links countless interactions which occur while our shared human existence endlessly renews and extends itself, interactions which shape and change our daily lives and light our path
Festival Photo La Gacilly 2018
2 June to 30 September, 2018
Anne-Dominique Chouteau
Rue des Graveurs – BP 11 – 56204 La Gacilly, France
