The Stories That Shape Us, by Ludivine Large-Bessette

Each year, the Delta program, initiated by the DRAC Hauts-de-France, enables three cultural organizations—the CRP, L’H du Siège, and the Institut pour la photographie—to invite an artist to develop an artistic project involving residents from their three respective regions.

through  The Stories That Shape Us , Ludivine Large-Bessette launches a collaborative discussion about our memories and the ways we share them.

The artist sought to reflect on the stories that serve as our guides and sources of support in daily life—those that help us persevere and enable us to grow. To this end, she collaborated with young people from the Lille region, students from the University of Valenciennes, and residents of the Les Bateliers nursing home at Lille University Hospital. Through conversation and the sharing of personal stories, the group realized that the themes that consistently and clearly emerged were stories of friendship.

through the personal stories she collects, Ludivine Large-Bessette uncovers formative narratives that are of paramount importance on an individual level. In our society, these stories that shape us are not usually celebrated as achievements. Perhaps we view friendship as an insignificant relationship because, through our adult eyes, it seems unproductive.

So, as if to restore significance to what is all too often dismissed, the artist brings these memories out of the confines that diminish their impact. Together with the people who agreed to open up, she envisions staged scenes. These genre scenes become historical scenes. Here, they are even transformed into an abbey triptych: gigantic, choreographed photographs, displayed for all to see, take on a new power. And much like a stained-glass window that we must decipher, the images are accompanied by an audio narrative that serves as a key to understanding them. 

The recorded stories they then reveal new interpretations and make way for the extraordinary unfolding within our everyday lives.

↘︎ Information: The outcome of this project, presented as a photographic installation on display outdoors, can be viewed through mid-March in front of the Les Bateliers nursing home before being exhibited at the H du Siège starting March 28, 2025, and then at the CRP starting May 31, 2025.

↘︎ Credits: The Stories That Shape Us is a project carried out as part of the Delta initiative, an outreach program supported by the DRAC Hauts-de-France and led by the H du Siège in Valenciennes, the CRP in Douchy-les-Mines, and the Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France in Lille.