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The Verdon Regional Natural Park, with the support of the DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, has launched an artist residency project combining creation and mediation around the theme ‘Lands of Legends’. Photographer Manon Monchaux was selected and invited to spend 10 weeks exploring the vertical relationships of the Grand Site of the Verdon Gorges through workshops and personal creation. Here is the result of her work in the exhibition:
'Sillons'.
Between hook and abstraction, this work explores the verticalities of the Verdon Gorges area as so many furrows carved out by time. Geological furrows in the limestone walls sculpted by water and erosion, human furrows in the paths that cling to the rock, domestic furrows in the shutters that streak the facades.
These vertical lines, whether natural or inhabited, tell a double story: that of a landscape that stands tall and resists, and that of the people who cling to it, tracing their presence there. The notion of habitat is revealed in this permanent tension between verticality and anchoring, between mineral monumentality and the intimate scale of everyday life.
By playing with framing and contrast, the images oscillate between documentation of reality and formal abstraction, revealing in these vertical furrows a shared memory – geological and human – inscribed in the very fabric of the land.
The exhibition is spread across three locations – the hall at the Escoulen school in Aiguines, the garden shed at the tower in Castellane and La Palud-sur-Verdon (subject to confirmation) – providing a series of focal points from which to observe these furrows that criss-cross and structure the landscape.
Manon practises analogue photography and processes such as Polaroid and pinhole photography, which she has incorporated into her work and into her mediation sessions with school groups and local residents.

The exhibition will be open to the public on Friday, March 27th from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. for the opening, then on Satur