A WEEKEND WITH NATURE

juin 17, 2013

Looking out of my window this morning where a storm is raging over Paris, I wonder if our two days of summer are over?

For the first time in a long time the weekend was sunny and warm with a lot going on. Pierre suggested that we went to see the Albert Khan gardens in Boulogne - on the outskirts of Paris.

Just a bit of background as it is certainly worth it. Albert Khan was born in Marmoutier in 1860. His family was relatively well off and belonged to small Jewish community. He came to Paris to live when he was 16 and later in 1898 created his own bank - and became very rich with a colossal fortune. What I have always appreciated with this man is the following:-

Albert Kahn was convinced that a knowledge of foreign societies encourages respect and peaceful relations among peoples. From 1898 onwards, armed with the necessary financial resources, he set up the series of bursaries he called Autour du Monde – "Around the World" – and founded the Chair of Human Geography at the Collège de France, plus the first centre for preventive medicine, a biology laboratory and two forums for discussion and research : the Société Autour du Monde, and the National Committee for Social and Political Studies.

In addition, realising that his era was to witness great changes, he began to build up an iconographic memory of societies, environments and lifestyles – many of them traditional – around the world. From 1909 to 1931, he commissioned photographers and film cameramen to record life in over 50 countries. The images were held in the Archive of the Planet, a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography, of which the museum now has the largest collection in the world.
The banker's ideal of cultural diversity is also visible in his gardens at Boulogne. Comprising horticultural models from a range of countries they are as much a part of his achievements as his various foundations.

The gardens are beautiful. I remembered them well and as we arrived when the gates were opened there were few people around. I took a couple pictures - enough can be found on Internet

http://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.net/les-jardins/les-differents-jardins/

gives and interactive view.

But the carp were still there - fatter and tamer than ever. The different greens are extraordinary.

Ajouter une légende

Just before the rose garden we came across a contemporary photo exhibition. Pierre found it rather out of place but that is what these gardens are all about. Contrast and relationship with other countries and races.

In the rose garden

A view of the exhibition

The photography in question was:

Ghislain Sénéchaut works in the tradition of the observers of the social landscape, topographers of the legendary and the familiar. A photographer and traveler, he loves countries where the remoteness and the harshness of life shape the body and mind. In 2003, his series Portraits du Kosovo revived a memory which had been too quickly forgotten. The elderly, adults and children were there, among the ruins of their villages. The black-and-white prints, the intimate formats and the sober compositions gave a sense of gravity to the aftermath of war, eliciting the viewer’s empathy.

From his photograph he looks like an old man. I know that he was self taught and start his life as a photographer in the early 2000. That’s about all. I did find one date referring to his birth 1977 - it doesn’t look that way.

At first the photos reminded me of the Australian centre. Cruel, harsh desert which I loved when crossing the Nullabour plains in a train which took three days. I was told that I would be bored. Not so, I only read three pages of my book. Looking at this bare land there is so much to see. Yet the photos below show a more arid and forbidding desert than that I saw in Australia.

I do know that Ghislain Sénéchaut lived in the Patagonian desert with the those who are courageous enough to survive there for 6 months is 2011 - when the photos were taken. Admirable - I would not survive a week......