Once you complete the National School of Photography in Arles (ENSP), every graduate is invited to offer it an end-of-school artwork, one of their "first photos".
After 32 years spent in the Arles city centre, the ENSP is getting ready to move to a new contemporary building, designed by Marc Barani. It feels like the right opportunity to open the archives made up of more than one thousand images. The year 2019 also marks the 100 anniversary of emblematic bookshop Maupetit, a loyal partner of photo exhibitions initiated by Festival Parallèle, dedicated to gestures by artists at an early stage in their careers.
Thus the exhibition À première vue became obvious, an opportunity to celebrate these two institutions and show the public out-of-the-ordinary images, like the first steps of artists, some of whom have become renowned in the field of photography. It goes to show the importance of supporting these first gestures…

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Une production ENSP – École nationale supérieure de la photographie (Arles) en coréalisation avec Maupetit et Parallèle, Plateforme pour la jeune création internationale.