A photographic essay on Southern France's neglected but characterful villages In Communes, French photographer Raymond Depardon (born 1942) explores the villages of the Mediterranean inland region, in the South of France. These villages have long been abandoned, threatened by the "Nant concession," a shale gas extraction project that was heavily protested by inhabitants and finally abandoned in 2015. Since then, the villages, with their cobbled streets and old houses with jagged facades and scanty windows, have once again become inhabited by people. The villages represent havens where tranquility and cool prevail. The black-and-white photographs that comprise this work were made after the first lockdown, during the summer of 2020, a backdrop that highlights the isolation of life in these small villages. The regions pictured include the south of the Massif Central in Aveyron, Lozère, Gard and Hérault.

Raymond Depardon in conversation with philosopher Paul Virilio about the notions of homeland and rootedness Filmmaker Raymond Depardon and eminent philosopher Paul Virilio discuss the relationship between ideas of homeland and rootedness, at a time when human migration has reached an unprecedented scale. Illustrating their dialogue, the artists and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan and Ben Rubin have devised a cartographic collaboration that tracks environmental, political and economic migrations around the world.

"In post-World War II France, commitment to cutting-edge technological modernization and explosive economic growth uprooted rural populations and eroded the village traditions of a largely peasant nation. And yet, this book argues, rural France did not vanish in the sweeping transformations of the 1950s and 1960s. The attachment of the French to rural ways and the agricultural past became a widely-shared preoccupation in the 1970s; this, in turn, became an engine of change in its own right. Though the French countryside is often imagined as stable and enduring, this book presents it as a site not just of decline and loss but also of change and adaptation. Rural Inventions explores the rise of restored peasant houses as second residences; utopian experiments in rural communes and in going back to the land; environmentalism; the literary success of peasant autobiographies; photography; and other representations through which the French revalorized rural life and landscapes. The peasantry as a social class may have died out, but the countryside persisted, valued as a site not only for agriculture but increasingly for sport and leisure, tourism, and social and political engagement; a place to dwell part-time as well as full-time; and a natural environment worth protecting. The postwar French state and the nation's rural and urban inhabitants remade the French countryside in relation to the city and to the world at large, not only invoking traditional France but also creating a vibrant and evolving part of the France yet to come"--

X93;At the age of 22 I was sent to Saigon to cover the war as a photojournalist. I was too late for Indochina, and too early for Vietnam. Muggers robbed me on my arrival, and I lived in a small hotel by the river. I drove towards the front in an old Citroën. I think I was happy. I returned some years later. It was for another war, and the famous reporters had left. The streets were full of GIs and their girlfriends, of blind bomb victims and so many children returning to school. It was the end of an epoch, people would hand flowers to the soldiers. Everybody wanted to leave, and it was cheap to stay at luxury hotels. To forget my heartache, I got drunk and walked the streets all day. The city was very generous and welcomed me with open arms, so I lost sense of time. I stayed for months in this city that no longer exists. The last time I went there I was at peace with things, and at the War Remnants Museum I visited my friends who had died on the battlefield. Today, the city has another name and has fully entered globalization.” Raymond Depardon.

A sumptuous survey of Mexico's foremost photographer Through more than 200 photographs, this luxurious volume presents Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide's most iconic works alongside an important selection of previously unpublished photographs and a series of color photographs specially commissioned by the Fondation Cartier. Working mainly in black and white, Iturbide has explored the cohabitation between ancestral traditions and Catholic rites in Mexico, humanity's relationship with death and the roles of women in society. In recent years, her photographs have emptied themselves of human presence, revealing the enigmatic life of objects and nature. In addition to her stark images of her homeland, this book also includes images from her series in India, the United States and elsewhere. Heliotropo 37, named for the photographer's address in Mexico City, also contains an interview with the photographer by French essayist Fabienne Bradu, an original short story by Guatemalan writer Eduardo Halfon and a photo-portrait of Iturbide's studio by Mexican photographer Pablo López Luz. One of the most influential photographers active in Latin America today, Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide (born 1942) began studying photography in the 1970s with legendary photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Seeking "to explore and articulate the ways in which a vocable such as 'Mexico' is meaningful only when understood as an intricate combination of histories and practices," as she puts it, Iturbide has created a nuanced and sensitive documentary record of contemporary Mexico. She lives and works in Mexico City.

Overworked, under-appreciated and often vilified: it's hard being a lone parent in a society still geared to the two-parent family. And yet one in four families are single parents households. Around 90% are headed up by a single mother. In the summer of 2019, Polly Braden, a single parent herself, started to document the day-to-day reality of what it means to be a single parent in the UK.

A new exploration of Piranesi’s work as a draftsman, published to coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum. The Venetian-born artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) is best known for his dramatic etchings of the architecture and antiquities of his adopted home city of Rome and for his extraordinary flights of spatial fancy, such as Le Carceri (“Prisons”). Published to coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum, this volume explores Piranesi’s celebrated skill as a draftsman. While many studies are concerned with Piranesi’s activities as a printmaker, this beautifully illustrated book examines new dimensions of his art by focusing on his drawings. Curator and author Sarah Vowles establishes a clear relationship between his drawings and prints, discusses the involvement of studio hands in his late works, and examines how his style as a draftsman evolved. Piranesi Drawings reveals the quality and lasting impact of the pen and chalk studies by a remarkably talented draftsman, as demonstrated by the superb collection at the British Museum.

Hugh Johnson has won a legion of fans with his keen ability to make the sometimes complex topic of wine wonderfully lucid—and every year, his popular pocket guide is a bestseller. That makes it number one in the market. Here, in it’s 30th anniversary year, he has completely revised and updated this classic, offering more current news than ever on over 6,000 wines, growers, and regions, along with up-to-the-minute vintage information, recommended wines (including budget options), and star ratings. With this book in hand, wine lovers won’t need anything else to help them select anything from a bottle for an everyday dinner to a prestige vintage for investment. A new section showcases Johnson’s special, personal choices, and there are plenty of quick-reference maps, charts, and fact boxes for a little extra guidance.

Raymond Depardon arrived in New York in the winter of 1980. He was visiting a friend who had just taken up a job in the city and to kill time he strolled around the streets with his Leica. He decided to take pictures without ever looking through the camera's viewfinder, working incognito in the nooks and crannies of New York. He amassed two or three rolls a day but at the time was thoroughly disappointed with the results. Depardon never mentioned the work to anyone and only decided to unveil these "blind" pictures twenty-seven years later. He was surprised to discover that most of his subjects were aware that they were being photographed. Their knowing glances towards the camera lens imbued with a pretence of indifference immortalises the very spirit and charm of this, the ultimate city. Raymond Depardon, born in 1942 in Villefranche-sur-Saône, is a film-maker, photographer and journalist. Co-founder of the agency Gamma in 1967, he travelled the world as a photojournalist and began making documentaries in the Direct Cinema tradition. In 1978 he joined Magnum Photos. In 1991 he was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Photographie and his work Délits flagrants won the César for best documentary film in 1995. He has made eighteen feature films and published about forty books. He lives in Paris. Paul Virilio, born in Paris in 1932, is a Senior Professor at the École Spéciale d'Architecture of Paris and was formerly Director and Head of the same institution between 1968 and 1998. After his first philosophical essays, he became the director of the collection Espace Critique by éditions Galilée in 1973. He was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Critique in 1987. In 1990, he became the course director at the Collège International de Philosophie when Jacques Derrida was the principal. In 1992, he became a member of the Haut Comité pour le logement des défavorisés, presided by Louis Besson. As an urban designer and an essayist, specialising in strategic questions about new technology, Virilio, has published widely in France and abroad. He has been a supporter of the association Non-Violence XXI, ever since its creation in 2001. He lives in La Rochelle.