Elsa&Johanna, “Sport in Focus” at Musée départemental Arles Antique

As part of the Rencontres d’Arles Festival, Sport in Focus (Le Sport à l’épreuve) lifts the veil on the vast photographic collections of the Olympic Museum and the Photo Elysée Museum in Lausanne. For over a century, major sporting events have been accompanied by images. With the rise of amateur photography at the end of the 19th century, coinciding with the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, photography and sport have, in many respects, evolved together. The visibility given to sporting events necessarily involves images. By exploring a largely unpublished photographic heritage, the exhibition offers a narrative that sheds light on the photography of sport and the Olympic Games.

On this occasion, Elsa and Johanna are exhibiting the two artistic posters created for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The two posters they designed for the occasion evoke the festive atmosphere of the Games. By appealing to the collective imagination and individual memory, they evoke the values of sport and solidarity, inviting deeper reflection on the place of sport in our society. References to the domestic and family aspects of preparing for the Games also enable Elsa & Johanna to represent the strength of union and community in sport, as well as the importance of entourage in sporting and personal success. They photographed the athlete Arnaud Assoumani, Paralympic long jump and triple jump champion for their Paralympic poster.Elsa & Johanna set the scene in a festive birthday party setting, offering us an intimate vision of the athlete’s sporting career, far removed from institutional receptions, but just as important because it’s here that the hopes and confidence of sportsmen and women are born.The artists wanted to orient the artistic direction of their posters toward a cinematic, offbeat, and poetic universe.
Visual references such as Wes Anderson, Martin Parr and Alex Prager permeate the artistic writing of this approach.

The choice of materials used in their scenography is consistent with Paris 2024’s commitment to sustainability. With this in mind, the clothes and furniture used to create the posters are second-hand and are also vehicles of memory and history.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

“Sport in Focus” (Le Sport à l’épreuve)
July 2 – September 29 2024

Musée départemental Arles Antique
Presqu’île du Cirque Romain, 13200 Arles

Opening hours
Wednesday to Sunday, 9:30 am to 6:00 pm.

as part of the Festival des Rencontres d’Arles

For further information, click here