press pack 24 th May > 9 th June 2014 preview Wednesday 28 th May at 4pm visit with the artist Thursday 29 th May at 2:30pm Project-Room

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press pack Project-Room Samuel GRATACAP LA CHANCE Exhibition produced in partnership with the CétàVOIR association in Sète, as part of the ImageSingulières photographic encounter.

1 press pack Project-Room Samuel GRATACAP LA CHANCE Exhibition produced in partnership with the CétàVOIR association in Sète, as part of the ImageSingulières photographic encounter. 24 th May > 9 th June 2014 preview Wednesday 28 th May at 4pm visit with the artist Thursday 29 th May at 2:30pm L anguedoc-roussillon Regional Centre of Contemporary Art 26 quai Aspirant Herber Sète FRANCE /tél. : / fax. : / / crac@cr-languedocroussillon.fr The CRAC LR is managed by the Languedoc-Roussillon Region. The CRAC is a member of the d.c.a / Associationfrançaise de développement des Centres d art (French Association for the Development of Art Centres).

2 press release Samuel Gratacap was born in France in 1982 and studied art at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Marseille. Since 2007, he has reflected on the representation of north-south and south-south geopolitical issues as well as transitory spaces on the map of migration routes in the Mediterranean. His work, begun at the Canet detention centre near Marseille, would lead him to Lampedusa then Zarzis, a port city in the south of Tunisia which was the scene of mass departures to Italy at the time of the Revolution. Zarzis was deserted, stripped of its tourists and part of its youth. Two out of three young people attempted the crossing or considered the possibility. No work, no prospects, the crossing costed between 500 and 1,000 and offered young people an opportunity, a "chance"... Marseille - Lampedusa "In 2007, while I was a student at the École des Beaux Arts in Marseille, I began a photographic work at the Canet detention centre for illegal immigrants in Marseille. The underlying reason for my decision to work in the Canet detention centre was the desire to understand the conditions of imprisonment and the judicial system in France with regard to undocumented immigrants. I felt like I was moving away from a reality through reading newspapers and publications of distorted figures or images, anonymous and impersonal testimonies. I wanted to go in search of a reality on a human scale, make it visible, define the contours of individual stories beyond the reasoning of numbers, flows and figures. This initial work resulted in a collection of texts / images entitled Retenus, témoignages et portraits ["Detainees, testimonies and portraits"] ( ). Three years later, in 2010, I decided to go to the island of Lampedusa, eager to meet its inhabitants and follow in the footsteps of the people I met in Marseille. The island was deserted, in low season, with migrants no longer arriving due to the bilateral agreements between Italy, Libya and Tunisia." ZARZIS, "A few kilometres from the city centre, men wait in a house for three weeks, they cannot leave so as not to attract attention, there they wait until there are enough candidates and mild enough weather to board a boat that will carry 120 people to Europe. Some of them have already made the crossing and will join members of their families in Italy, France or Germany, while for others it is the first time, they are not afraid: "It can't be worse than here! The revolution, the elections for the Constituent Assembly, it's changed nothing for them, no work, no prospects for the future: "It's always the same crap, we're leaving, Tunisia is finished for us. Samuel Gratacap

3 Marseille - Lampedusa "Marseille and Lampedusa, two cities that are hubs, two cities full of history, encounters, paths, movement. Samuel Gratacap's photography and documentary project began in 2007 in Marseille, in a detention centre for undocumented immigrants: for him, it was essential to understand the political and geographical situation at play on the ground, through contact with those who experience it. This resulted in portraits and testimonies of "detainees", men left in this in-between world. In 2010, he went to Lampedusa, as if to make the journey in reverse, in order to return to the path travelled, to meet "those who remain" as he says, and to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. And it was there that the documentary writing became charged with life, of memories incarnated in objects, since Gratacap collected documents that belonged to migrants, gathered on the beaches of Lampedusa and in the cemeteries of clandestine boats: these are fragments of life, bits of writing, envelopes never sent, a message in a bottle that never reached its destination, photographs destroyed by time, wind and salt... He decided to photograph these marks of existence and thus testify to what has been buried, like an archaeologist bringing the past back to life. Lampedusa is also deserted, with endless roads where the sun beats down and where an abandoned scooter sits idly." Text by the art critic Léa Bismuth (ArtPress), written as part of the Jeune Création group exhibition (The CentQuatre, Paris) (November 2012) Photographic reproduction of a washed up document Lampedusa 2010 C-print mounted on Dibond with white borders and a 20 x 30 cm shadow box frame

Zarzis "Galleries abound. The city is decorated with windows displaying works of all formats and all categories. Twenty or so places dedicated to art opened in the space of two years.

4 Zarzis "Galleries abound. The city is decorated with windows displaying works of all formats and all categories. Twenty or so places dedicated to art opened in the space of two years. Marseille 2013 European Capital of Culture has had a trigger effect; the abundance of initiatives proves that, regardless of the reluctance towards the mammoth event before it took place, the expectations were great. A new gallery, Straat Galerie, opened on rue des Bergers and exhibited the work of Samuel Gratacap, who maximised the limited space by entirely covering the left wall with a paper print of the same format and weight as a poster in the Paris metro. The shot represents a blanket rolled into a ball on a sofa; nothing exceptional nor spectacular, simply the traces of a brief passage, a gesture of the transit of temporary accommodation. On the other wall, small tight formats without pathos and without a strong emotional effect, of illegal immigrants fleeing Tunisia. Whether they figure in the photo or not, realism is not the photographer's objective: he points out, demonstrates, testifies and lets us judge. What about stolen sleep? In a place of fragility and recovery from fatigue, on makeshift sofas, on one-night beds, he tightly shows the bodies from behind. The sobriety of the comment printed on the wall explains the process without weighing it down. Certainly a testimony persists, a will to denounce, but what could have remained a photo documentary or a report of what is happening within is taken subtly out of frame. The young men who do not know where they are going but who know what they are leaving behind do not seem hounded: they are departing and the greatest peril is to abandon the past. When anthropology is shunted by poetry, when what you see is dismantled and more direct, making the signs of the world intelligible and tangible to more than one is a great achievement. Samuel Gratacap has achieved his objective. Texte de l écrivain Emmanuel Loi (revue Inferno) à propos de l exposition Wait and Sea (Straat Galerie, Printemps de l art contemporain, Marseille) (mai 2012) Zarzis 2012 variable dimensions and mediums

5 Biographical elements Samuel GRATACAP, born in 1982, lives between Marseille and Tunis Graduated from the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille in 2010 Assistant for Antoine d Agata in 2013 Assistant for Bouchra Khalili in 2008 SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 SFR-Le BAL Award for young European photography, Le Bal, Paris. La chance, Project Room at CRAC LR, Sète Wait...and sea, Galerie Jeune Création, Paris Wait...and sea, Straat Galerie, Printemps de l Art Contemporain [Spring of Contemporary Art]de Marseille. GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 The Other European Travellers (TOET Project), Centro de Artes de Sevilla Marseille seen by 100 photographers, Bouches du Rhône Departmental Library, Marseille 2012 Jeune Création, The Centquatre, Paris. Sea of Promise, F/STOP International Photography Festival in Leipzig. Maison Blanche Contemporary Photography Festival, Marseille Transactions, Rencontres d'arles photography festival Off.. PRIZES / RESIDENCIES 2013 Winner of the SFR-Le BAL Award for young European photography, Le Bal, Paris Residency at the Atelier de Visu workshop, TOET project (Marseille). CNAP grant (Fund for contemporary documentary photography) for the Immersion(s) project - Tunisia. PUBLICATIONS / EDITIONS 2014 Images Magazine, December-January 2012 F/STOP catalogue (ed. Lubok Verlag), Leipzig. Marseille-Lampedusa, 96-page book, four-colour printing (self-publication). Catalogue for the Maison-Blanche contemporary photography festival.

CRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, a leading venue in contemporary art USEFUL INFORMATION LR Regional Centre of Contemporary Art 26 quai Aspirant Herber

fr OPENING HOURS Open every day from 12:30pm to 7pm, Weekends from 2pm to 7pm, Closed on Tuesdays with the exception of 3th June Free admission

fr +33(0)4 67 74 96 79 +33(0)6 80 65 59 67 EDUCATION SERVICE Vanessa ROSSIGNOL rossignol.vanessa@cr-languedocroussillon.

Every Saturday and Sunday at 4pm, Free guided tours, suitable for all visitors More information at: http://crac.languedocroussillon.

out onto the Mediterranean. Its architecture offers an exceptional exhibition space in a former industrial building.

the different room heights characterises the exhibition areas.

to West. Dedicated to artistic creation, its programme features temporary exhibitions, with specific projects created on site.

It shines a light on the crossover between the different disciplines which make up the art of today and tomorrow through the discovery of new

Simultaneously an area for production, research, experimentation and exhibition, to date the CRAC has presented over six hundred artists from the

6 CRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, a leading venue in contemporary art USEFUL INFORMATION LR Regional Centre of Contemporary Art 26 quai Aspirant Herber Sète, FRANCE tel. : +33 (0) fax. : +33 (0) crac@cr-languedocroussillon.fr OPENING HOURS Open every day from 12:30pm to 7pm, Weekends from 2pm to 7pm, Closed on Tuesdays with the exception of 3th June Free admission DIRECTOR Noëlle TISSIER tissier.noelle@cr-languedocroussillon.fr PRESS CONTACT Sylvie CAUMET caumet.sylvie@cr-languedocroussillon.fr +33(0) (0) EDUCATION SERVICE Vanessa ROSSIGNOL rossignol.vanessa@cr-languedocroussillon.fr +33(0) "Participatory" visits free on reservation. Every Saturday and Sunday at 4pm, Free guided tours, suitable for all visitors More information at: At the heart of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, located in Sète on the banks of the royal canal, the Regional Centre of Contemporary Art opens out onto the Mediterranean. Its architecture offers an exceptional exhibition space in a former industrial building. Architect Lorenzo PIQUERAS has restored this original site to give it its current configuration, in which the stepping stone effect produced by the different room heights characterises the exhibition areas. The CRAC LR bases its project on the artistic and historic, economic and tourist communication channels that runs from North to South, from East to West. Dedicated to artistic creation, its programme features temporary exhibitions, with specific projects created on site. It encourages international partnerships offering everyone the ideal opportunity to explore current creations. It shines a light on the crossover between the different disciplines which make up the art of today and tomorrow through the discovery of new works. Simultaneously an area for production, research, experimentation and exhibition, to date the CRAC has presented over six hundred artists from the national and international stage. Noëlle TISSIER, director, exhibition curator - Manuelle COMITO, administration - Cédric NOEL, registrar - Patrice BONJOUR, web - Martine CARPENTIER, secretariat - Vanessa ROSSIGNOL education service - Karine REDON, reception, documentation, education services - Cécile VIGUIER, Chantal SERIEX education service - Sylvie CAUMET public relations and partnerships. The CRAC LR is managed by the Languedoc-Roussillon Region. The CRAC is a member of the d.c.a / Association française de développement des Centres d art (French Association for the Development of Art Centres).

LA TRAVERSÉE / THE CROSSING - JOHAN CRETEN >

CENTRE RÉGIONAL D ART CONTEMPORAIN OCCITANIE PYRÉNÉES MÉDITERRANÉE PRESS KIT LA TRAVERSÉE / THE CROSSING - JOHAN CRETEN 22.10.2016 > 15.01.2017 MONOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION Curator Noëlle Tissier Press contact