Since 1999, Valérie Leray is the Artistic Director of la mire (ex Lumen) in Orléans (FR), a non-profit organisation which aimed at promoting photography and video.
Global approach
Documentary photography raises the question of the representation of Utopia. When it deals with historical sites – what the French historian Pierre Nora calls “the realms of memory” (lieux de mémoire) – photography explores the tension between the traces of History, i.e. its own capacity to become visible where it happened, and its fictional potential. What matters to me is to restore the different times of history in my photographs: the present, that is to say, the visible as well as History’s short or long time.
I take my photographs on the memory sites themselves. Therefore they aim to restore memory. I never shoot an event when it happens, though important. But I keep coming back on sites where History took place.
The memory site becomes the place for a creative gesture: the objects that are traces of History become signs, symbols or allegories embodied in a new fiction. I intend to give a new reality to what remains invisible so as to fill this place with a new life and a new emotion.
In Nomads - Not So Innocent Landscapes – around a memory site, memory of which has been erased : Roms´ prisoner camps in France during the Second World War. Today those camps are a kind of nowhere; without a single trace of what took place there, they have become neutral common places. Memory is no longer present but concealed. The place bears the resonance of History. It is like faking time.
| Solo Exhibitions | |
| 2015 | Ort ohne Namen, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin (De) |
| 2013 | In the Making (À l’état latent), Maueraum Berlin, Berlin (De) Nomads (Nomades), CERCIL, Orléans (Fr) |
| 2012 | In the Making (À l’état latent), European Month of Photography, EMOP |
| stattberlin, Berlin (De) | |
| 2008 | Réputés nomades, Images du pôle, Orléans (Fr) |
| 2006 | Ratacire, Château Dupanloup, Yzeure (Fr) |
| 2005 | Tryptique d’Aran, Salon du livre insulaire, Ouessant (Fr) |
| 2003 | Travail de nuit, Galeries des Alliances françaises de Monterrey et Sertillo (Mx) Ratacire (Errances) L’Olympique Café, Paris, (Fr) |
| 2002 | Travail de nuit, 1ère partie « chantier », Centre Charles Péguy, Orléans (Fr) |
| 2000 | Portraits d’hommes sans papiers, Forum des droits de l’Homme, Orléans (Fr) |
| 1999 | Mouvement, 1ère rencontre photographique d’Orléans, Crédit Mutuel Bannier, Orléans (Fr) |
| Group Exhibitions | |
| 2015 | Transmitting Trauma? Gallery8 (Hu) and Gallery Kai Dikhas, Berlin (De) |
| 2014 | STOPPING PLACES IV, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin (De) |
| EIGEN . BILD, Europäischer Monat der Fotografie, EMOP, Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin (De) | |
| Vom Anhalten des Verschwindens, Lamspringe, Curator: Stephan Halter (De) | |
| 2010 | Tangible/ Intangible, Tamtamart, Idolon Studio (Tw-De), Berlin (De) |
| 2009 | Réputés nomades, Utile ignorance, Société de la diffusion pour l’art contemporain, Strasbourg (Fr) 2007 Produits inversés, quartier documentaire, Orléans (Fr) |
| 2006 | Un lieu sans nom, Festival de Pingyao (Ch); Ratacire, Tongli (Ch) |
| 2005 | Des teritoires, présentation de Ratacire, Un été de la photographie, Stimultania, Strasbourg, (Fr) |
| Des territoires, présentation de Es la vida de nosotros, Salon du livre, St Laurent Nouan (Fr) | |
| 2004 | L’expérience d’un territoire, présentation Es la vida de nosotros », Château de l’étang, Saran (Fr) |
| 2003 | A Otros extranjeros, Ratacire, Tryptique d’Aran, Fotoseptiembre Festival, Biblioteca de José Vasconcelos, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico D.F |
| 2002 | Triptyque d’Aran, Galerie L’Oeil vagabond, Meung-sur-Loire (Fr) |
| 2001 | Triptyque d’Aran, 3ème rencontre photographique d’Orléans, Images du Pôle, Orléans (Fr); Triptyque d’Aran, Galerie Pictura, Bourges (Fr) |
| Artist In Residency Program | |
| 2016 | Art Taiwan Square, Tainan (TW) |
| 2012 | GlogauAIR / la mire, Institut Français & Région Centre, Berlin (De) |
| 2008 - 2009 | Research Artist Residency, Le POCTB (Fr) / Berlin (De) |
| 2003 | Mexico D.F, Alliances Française de POLANCO / LUMEN/ CENTRO DE LA IMAGEN/ AFAA/DRAC Centre/Région Centre (Mx-Fr) |
| Collection/ Grant | |
| 2009 | Funding - Aide à la production-Région Centre (Fr) |
| Funding - Aide à la création - DRAC centre (Fr) | |
| Purchase - 1% ARTISTIQUE, Conseil Régional du Centre (Fr) | |
| 2008 | Funding - European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, MCC, DDAI (Fr) |
| Websites/ Catalogues/ book (selection) | |
| 2013 | PDN, photooftheday/history, jul, (N.Y) Camera Austria, Forum, N°119, (Au) |
| Catalogue A view of the others, EMOP Berlin (De) | |
| Catalogue A Lapse of Absence, la mire (Fr) | |
| 2008 | Art 21, N°15, Dec 2007/ Jan 2008, Réputés Nomades, Art.de |
| Rémy Argensson (Fr) 2003 Catalogue Fotoseptiembre, Centro de la Imagen (Mx) | |
| 2001 | À Orléans, Retour à la Source, Libération, août (Fr) |
| 2000 | Sans-papiers, tu vis pas, Paris, L’Harmattan (Fr) |
| Sound/ Video | |
| 2012 - 2013 | Interviews about the internment camp of Rom, Nomads, CERCIL |
| 2010 - 2012 | Concrete Ruins, Nomads |
| 2007 | Dans la nuit, Field Recording, soundtrack with Paul Laurent for a self-titled photographic exhibition Correspondances, Video, FotoRio (Br) |
| 2005 | Expérience d’un territoire, Field Recording, émission écho-écho, radio campus Orléans (Fr) |
| Workshops / Lectures (selection) | |
| 2015 | Zur Situation der Manouche in Frankreich, Bildvortrag, Hildegard Lagrenne Stiftung, Berlin (De) |
| Spaces and Memories of Roms in France, Second World War, Ort ohne Namen, Photography, Erinnern-Kontroverse, Agentur für Bildung - Geschichte, Politik und Medien, Berlin (De) | |
| 2011 | Résidency “Écriture de Lumière”, Nature humaine MCC/ la mire/ Lycée Agricole Beaune la Rolande (Fr) |
| 2009 - 2010 | Spaces and Memories of the Roma’s, Collège Louis Armand, European Year of Intercultural Dialogue |
| 2005 | Correspondances, avec M. Nejmi, Grand Projet de Ville/ lumen, Orléans (Fr) |
| 2004 | Atelier Photo autour de l’exposition U-topia, FRAC Centre (Fr) |
| Holga, with Francisco Mata Rosas, Lumen, Images du Pôle, Orléans (Fr) | |
| 2003 | Talleres con las participantes del Centro de FARO Mexico-Iztapalapa (Mx) & lecture Academia de fotografia with Omar Gomez (Mx) |
| Since 2002 | Workshops in the Artistic Education Plan and Schools: PLEA, Classe PAC, Aux Arts, Lycéens, (Fr) |