Our Partners

For the 5th year running, the CNRS is delighted with its partnership with the 1+2 Photography & Sciences Residency.

Over the years, we’ve seen that the scientific subjects taken up by the photographers in residence in the laboratories of the Occitanie Ouest district are often linked to current issues in our society: climate change, landscape transformations, our relationship with memory, to name but a few examples. The artists’ questions meet recent scientific advances. The research teams, aware of the importance of sharing the state of knowledge with as many people as possible, see these encounters as opportunities to « show » their work in a different way to new audiences. Researchers report that confrontations between artistic intuitions and scientific approaches stimulate each other’s creativity. « These cross-views between the photographer and us scientists have undoubtedly benefited us as much as them… », we are often told by the scientist who has hosted a photographer. Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen the emergence of ties between artists and scientists that continue beyond the duration of the residency. Our partnership, which facilitates photographers’ access to scientific expertise and research facilities, encourages a multi-cultural, interdisciplinary approach and a meeting of two worlds.

So it was only natural that the CNRS should also be one of the partners of the Prix Photographie & Sciences, launched in 2021 at the Rencontres d’Arles by the Résidence 1+2 and to be awarded at the 3rd edition this year. This prize supports contemporary photography that develops an authorial approach, beyond our region, and contributes to the recognition of talents capable of showing the science done in CNRS laboratories from another angle!

Jocelyn Méré

Regional Delegate, CNRS Occitanie Ouest