Culture Class 2023

In November 2023, accompanied by the artistic and cultural outreach team and photographer Anouk Desury, 23 fourth-grade students from François Arago Elementary School in Lille explored the themes of identity and self-representation. By taking the opposite approach to the information required by the government on identification documents, they explored different ways of talking about themselves and presenting themselves through photographic portraits, drawing, collage, and small-scale publishing.

Drawing inspiration from Anouk Desury’s photographic practice, each student was given a notebook, which served as a common thread throughout this week of experimentation and discovery. Thus, page after page, the notebook blends photographs taken by the children within the exhibitions and with their families at the end of these days of immersion—silent, reimagined vernacular photographs that reflect the students’ dreams, memories, and, at times, anxieties.

Echoing these images, dreamlike portraits of each student—created by Anouk Desury separately from the group activities—reveal each child’s uniqueness and future aspirations.

For a week, the Institute served as a space for the students that bridged the gap between their bedrooms and their classrooms. Through exhibition tours, workshops, games centered on photography, and interactions with the Institut pour la photographie’s staff, other, more personal relationships were able to develop between children and adults.