eva nielsen captures the camargue's changing landscape in BMW's INSOLARE exhibition

INSOLARE: Eva Nielsen & Marianne Derrien AT Les Rencontres d’Arles

In INSOLARE, Franco-Danish artist Eva Nielsen and curator Marianne Derrien reflect on the evolving landscape of the Camargue, a coastal region south of the city of Arles where the Rhône River meets the Mediterranean Sea. Undertaken as part of the BMW ART MAKERS initiative, the project is currently on view at Les Rencontres d’Arles, the photography festival taking place every summer in the French city. Between the vaults of the Cloître Saint-Trophime, a Roman cloister designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981, the exhibition presents a series of works that take on a transformative quality by blending photography, silk-screening, painting, and printing. Through an approach that is both poetic and scientific, Nielsen and Derrien highlight the environmental changes that are leading to the disappearance of certain urban, industrial and natural landscapes, where the human footprint is always in question.

‘With INSOLARE, Eva Nielsen takes optical and hydro-geological phenomena and combines them with a technical gesture, that of exposure, used in particular in screen-printing,’ curator Marianne Derrien explains. ‘A spectrum of both rural and industrial reality, this project crosses the artist’s trajectories with those of the territories at the gateway to Arles, where the Camargue begins.’

INSOLARE at Les Rencontres d’Arles | images by Maxime Turpault, Les Gobelins, courtesy of BMW Group

DOCUMENTING the camargue’s changing landscape

Taking up the subject of geographical and geological change, Eva Nielsen made several trips to the Camargue, where she took hundreds of photographs. Through her photography, she captures the essence of the coastal area, integrating observations of climatic and geological phenomena with screen printing techniques. Nielsen approaches her craft like a topographer, aiming to create a ‘state of awareness’ that reflects the reality of a territory, its architecture, and environment. The different techniques and materials used by the artist are superimposed and hybridised, resulting in a form of transfiguration where the works echo the ever-changing landscape of the Camargue.

‘Faced with̀ the intensitý of natural phenomena and forces, between drought and rising waters, living areas circulate and migrate in Eva Nielsen’s works through superimpositions of screen-printed images and paintings offering a fragmented vision of these territories,’ Marianne Derrien adds. ‘Blurring the boundaries between media, practices and motifs, INSOLARE brings to life the sedimentation of the Camargue’s solar and liquid landscapes.’

the exhibition takes place inside the Cloître Saint-Trophime

PART OF THE Geographies of the Gaze section AT Rencontres d’ArleS

INSOLARE is part of the Geographies of the Gaze section of the 54th Rencontres d’Arles, which runs until September 24, 2023. ‘Alongside other artists whose work reveals a state of awareness of the reality of climate and ecological upheaval, Eva Nielsen takes us on a journey through the Camargue region, where geography meets the traces of a contemporary history rich in its past, in a sensitive and original approach at the crossroads of different practices,’ Christoph Wiesner, director of the Rencontres d’Arles, notes.

The project is presented through a scenography that is designed specifically to respond to ecological and heritage preservation issues. With the environment in mind, the exhibition design ensures that materials are produced and used as sparingly as possible. Suspended metal structures have replaced the traditional picture rails, and they will be reused at Paris Photo, where INSOLARE will also be on view in November 2023.

A NEW EXPERIMENT AS PART OF BMW ART MAKERS

In early 2023, Eva Nielsen and Marianne Derrien were announced as the winners of the second edition of the BMW ART MAKERS, a program created by BMW Group, supports a duo each year in the creation of a joint project focusing on innovation and the visual arts.

‘Eva Nielsen and Marianne Derrien’s project on the impact of human activity on the land is a natural fit for the BMW ART MAKERS program,’ explains Maryse Bataillard, Head of Corporate Communications and CSR, BMW Group France.‘We’re proud to be presenting a ground-breaking exhibition in Arles, a key venue for lovers of the visual arts. The intermingling of mediums and their use as a lever for innovation totally echo the values of the BMW Group, which is fully committed to contributing to the trajectory towards carbon neutrality and has presented a concept for a 100% recyclable and recycled car by 2040.’