As part of the 800th anniversary celebrations, a photography exhibition will be held from July 10 to October 10. Curated by renowned photographer CédricMATET, it will be held at the Jardin des Plantes. In 2020, this photographer also curated the exhibition “Behind the Masks,” whichfeatures200 portraits of medical personnel.
Practical Information
“People in Their Gardens”
The title of the exhibition is intrinsically linked to itscontent. In fact, for this occasion, the artist chose to work with anatomical specimens from the Faculty’s anatomy museum. To better understand his project, we interviewed the photographer.
What is your background?
I’m originally fromSète. I attended a design school in Montpellier that is now called ESMA. After that, I enrolled at the Gobelins School of Visual Arts in Paris. Later, I went back to school to earn a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Sustainable Development because I’m interested in cities. In the meantime, I’ve been working in art direction and design at various communications agencies.
What interests me is connecting art to the city, to maps, to cartography, and to people. In my view, an artist must be rooted in their context: urban, political, and human.
Can you tell us about the "Behind the Masks" project?
It was GéraldCHANQUES, a professor at the faculty and a doctor atSaint EloiHospital, who contacted me and proposed this project. I wanted to convey a vision ofwhat healthcare providers and their commitments can be.
How would you describe yourself?
If I had to describe myself and my work, I would talk abouttransdisciplinarity. Indeed, I am a photographer, but I am also a visual artist; I enjoy working with various materials and collaborating with people from different fields.
Can you tell us about your new exhibition, “Man in His Garden”?
It’s been a long time since I first thought of focusing on the Jardin des Plantes, but I’ve always had a real passion for the anatomy museum I visited when I was a student. Being able to discuss botany through the garden, but also the human body and research on it—I think that’s fabulous. The project was developed by the two of us, once again with ProfessorCHANQUES.
This project is interesting becauseit pushes me out of my comfort zone;I usuallytake portraits, but that’s not the case here.
Moreover, since all the rooms are designated as heritage sites, I have a special relationship with the curator. She is the third subject of this project; I can’t work without her. Usually, I direct my model,but here I can’t because of the room’s fragility; every movement must be guided by the curator.
It’sinteresting becausethe room and the garden exist independently of me.
There are three of us working on this project: Jane, who does digital art and is a videographer; Luc, who does motion design, among other things; and me, who works with visuals and handles the artistic direction for the whole project. None of us knows what the final result will be.
How did you choose the anatomical parts?
I first sought advice from ProfessorCHANQUES and the curators to find out which pieces are emblematic of the conservatory. I didn’t choose the pieces based on their aesthetic appeal, since the goal of this exhibition is to tell a story and convey meaning.
The only exception to this is a bust we found, whose identity, history, or era is unknown to anyone. I found it fragile and touching, so I decided to include it. It’s the only piece I chose based on a gut feeling.
Unfortunately, there were some pieceswe couldn’t include because they were too fragile. I was also drawn to other pieces, but they didn’t depict the human body and therefore strayed from the subject. I’ll address those later in another, more personal project.
Some pieces are also too heavy to move. However, this is part of the exhibition’s story.
For certain pieces that we couldn’t bring out to the Jardin des Plantes, we brought the Jardin to them by bringing branches and foliage.
One hundred years ago, students from the Montpellier Faculty of Medicine unveiled works of art in the Jardin des Plantes and its historic building to celebrate the faculty’s 700th anniversary. To recreate this symbolic gesture for the 800th anniversary, a student association was founded by current students in 2019.
The founding of an association
To carry out this project,the Association Carabine Montpelliéraine (ACM) and the Syndicat des Internes du Languedoc-Roussillon (SIRL) have joined forces to createthe Association for a Historic Ceremony of Montpellier Medical Students (ACHEMM). The association consists of 19 members and is chaired by Allan Guilliey, a fourth-year medical student. The association’s goal is to implement the project from concept to completion, including the search for artists who will exhibit their works at the new Arnaud de Villeneuve Campus.
An event redesigned in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
Originally, this exhibition was to be launched with a gala organized by ACHEMM students. Numerous European institutions were to be invited to attend in late 2020, and the association had the opportunity to speak at the COIMBRA Group conference, initially scheduled for June 2020. Founded in 1985, this group aims to bring together and promote excellence among European universities, with a view to sustaining high standards of teaching, research, and academic mobility on an international level, while fostering unique cultural ties.
Unfortunately, due to health restrictions requiring a rethinking of the event, an exhibition opening will take place in July 2021 to showcase the students’ work.
A monumental task
To bring this project to fruition, the students in the association had to invest a great deal of their time and energy. To showcase meaningful works, the students issued a call for submissions to local artists. About twenty artists submitted their work; the students then selected thirteen of them based on which pieces seemed most artistically suited to the project.
Next, the association’s members had to approach local governments to secure funding to pay the artists. These institutions were invaluable in helping to bring this project to fruition.
Finally, a tremendous amount of organizational work has been done over the past two years to bring this exhibition to life and, through it, to highlight the history of the Faculty.
Transmission as a common thread
The theme of this exhibition is transmission. Indeed, in 2017, the 800-year-old Faculty expanded with a new, state-of-the-art campus: the Arnaud de Villeneuve Campus. The works in this exhibition bridge the gap between these two sites, combining the classical and the modern, realism and abstraction, to represent both places and, through them, both eras.
The centerpiece of this exhibition, created by Nicolas Daubanes, is a DNA molecule—a reminder that even though the Faculty is spread across different locations, all these campuses share the same DNA and are part of its history.
Artists and Their Works
Visit the exhibition
Guided tours will be offered on Saturday, July 10, and Sunday, July 11, starting at 2:00 p.m. They will be conducted in accordance with safety guidelines. Registration is required:
The association would like to thank all of its partners (the DRAC, the FRAC, the Hérault Department, the Occitanie Region, Pumkin, the CROUS, the University of Montpellier, the Montpellier Metropolitan Area, and the City of Montpellier) for their support, as well as Professor Gérald CHANQUES and the Faculty’s staff, who worked to ensure the smooth running of this project.
In 2016 and 2018, Ms. Barjon and Ms. Blanc, daughters of former Dean Gaston Giraud, bequeathed their father’s archives to the University of Montpellier. Thanks to these archives, we are now able to present an exhibition on the evolution of the Faculty’s various buildings and sites since its 700th anniversary, commemorated in 1921.
An exhibition divided into several sections
This exhibition, organized by the University of Montpellier Archives Department (Sophie Dikoff, Antoine Redouly, and Gwendoline Perrault) in collaboration with Ms. Barjon and Professor Dedet, and with the special participation of Dean Jacques Bringer, Professor Daniel Jarry, and Mr. Serge Caminade, will focus on the evolution of the various buildings and sites that make up the Faculty: the Historic Building, the Institute of Biology, the extensions in Nîmes and on the northern site of Montpellier (the UPM and the Arnaud de Villeneuve campus building), and finally the Botanical Garden.
Dive into the archives
Thanks to donations from the family of former Dean Giraud, this exhibition features a wealth of photographs. You can view photos of the old buildings and see how their architecture has evolved over time. The exhibition also showcases other documents that shed light on the buildings’ development, such as architectural plans, handwritten letters, and postcards…
A large-scale project
To mark the occasion, we spoke with Sophie Dikoff, the archivist in charge of this exhibition, to learn how it was put together.
Could you tell us about your job?
My role as an archivist at the University of Montpellier is to assist all departments in managing their archives in accordance with current legislation governing public archives. This work is carried out in collaboration with the Hérault Departmental Archives, which provides scientific and technical oversight. Archives serve to document changes—whether architectural, societal, or otherwise…
Where do the archival materials in this exhibition come from?
Most of these items come from donations made by Dean Giraud’s family. Indeed, the dean kept many documents related to his various projects, both in his capacity as dean of the Montpellier Faculty of Medicine and in his personal capacity, as someone with a passion for the history of medicine and the Montpellier Faculty. The remaining archives come from the University’s iconographic collection, the University’s photo library, and that of the Conference of University Presidents, which have been supplemented by photographs taken for the exhibition.
How long did it take you to prepare this exhibition?
The exhibition was originally scheduled to take place in October 2020, but due to health restrictions, we had to postpone it. So I’ve been working on this project since around the beginning of 2020. The process is very long, as it first requires conducting research to understand the various aspects of the subject (searching archives, reading, meeting with subject matter experts), selecting the most interesting documents, obtaining permissions to use photos in accordance with copyright laws, writing texts, and determining a visitor route. For the exhibition design, we hired a professional scenographer, André Dumonnet. For this exhibition, the approach was to organize the presentation by building and then in chronological order. A panel displays a timeline covering all buildings and sites.
An exhibition open to everyone
The exhibition, which will run from June 18, 2021, at 1:30 p.m. to July 21, 2021, at 6:00 p.m., is free of charge. Self-guided tours will be available Wednesday through Friday from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with guided tours available Saturdays from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
