A Zone to Defend series got the 1st prize at the Reportage category  of the Spéos Photo Awards 2018! As a  result, it will be screened during VOIES OFF Festival in Arles, along with the photos of all the  winners of the 1st  edition of the Spéos Photo Awards.

The screening will take place on 7th of July , 2018 at 22:00 at the Courtyard of the Archdiocese in Arles. 

The awarded students are:
Reportage Category
1st prize: Penelope THOMAIDI  |  2nd prize: Anouar HENDRIXX  | 3rd prize: Mahé CHARPENTIER (Wozniak)
Fashion Category
1st prize: Aleksandra PAVLOVA | 2nd prize: Thomas KUHN | 3rd prize: Ang LIANG | 4th prize: Roee BOKOBZA
Studio  Category
1st prize: Lina BENOUHOUD | 2nd prize: Santana PETCHSUK | 3rd prize: Elle HARDMAN

Happy to participate at Le Boudoir #2 pop-photo exhibition!  Le Boudoir #2 will take place in a secret place in Paris on 9 June 2018!

RSVP to redorreveal@gmail.com to get the address.

Le Boudoir #2 is curated by RED REVEAL (Marieke Zapasnik) and presents the work of women photographers:

Olga Sondyk, Penelope Thomaidi, Hortence Giraud, Wozniak

Join us to celebrate the graduation of students from the Magnum and Spéos one-year “Creative Documentary &  Photojournalism” programme with the exhibition European Youth.

Opening on Thursday 31st of May at 18h30
Duration: 31 May - 15 June 2018
at Magnum Photos 19 Rue Hégésippe Moreau75018, Paris

A short report on the eviction operations that took place in the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in west France, in April 2018. See full article on LIFO.

This is a long read by one of the inhabitants of the Zad, about the the fortnight rollercoaster of rural riots that has just taken place to evict the liberated territory of the zad. It’s been incredibly intense and hard to find a moment to write, but we did our best. This is simply one viewpoint, there are over 1000 people on the zone at the moment and every one of them could tell a different story. Thank you for all the friends and comrades who helped by sharing their stories, rebel spirits and lemon juice against the tear gas.

The Revenge against the Commons of the zad or Why France’s biggest police operation since May 68 is prepared to kill for Macron’s Neoliberal Nightmare.

“We must bring into being the world we want to defend. These cracks where people find each other to build a beautiful future are important. This is how the zad is a model.” Naomi Klein

“What is happening at Notre-Dame-des-Landes illustrates a conflict that concerns the whole world” Raoul Vaneigem

The police helicopter hovers above, its bone rattling clattering never seems to stop. At night its long godlike finger of light penetrates our cabins and farm houses. It has been so hard to sleep this last week. Even dreaming, it seems, is a crime on the zad. And that’s the point: these 4000 acres of autonomous territory, this zone to defend (zad), has existed despite the state and capitalism for nearly a decade and no government can allow such a place to flourish. All territories that are inhabited by people who bridge the gap between dream and action have to be crushed before their hope begins to spread. This is why France’s biggest police operation since May 1968, at a cost of 400,000 euros a day, has been trying to evict us with its 2500 gendarmes, armoured vehicles (APCs), bulldozers, rubber bullets, drones, 200 cameras and 11,000 tear gas and stun grenades fired since the operation began at 3.20am on the morning of the 9th of April.

The state said that these would be “targeted evictions”, claiming that there were up to 80 ‘radical’ zadists that would be hunted down, and that the rest, the ‘good’ zadists, would have to legalise or face the same fate. The good zadist was a caricature of the gentle ‘neo rural farmer’ returning to the land, the bad, an ultra violent revolutionary, just there to make trouble. Of course this was a fantasy vision to feed the state’s primary strategy, to divide this diverse popular movement that has managed to defeat 3 different French governments and win France’s biggest political victory of a generation: The abandonment of the building of the international airport of Notre-Dames-des-Landes.

Read the full article.

Published on Argot.fr / Words & pictures by Penelope Thomaidi

Saint-Denis “Ilôt 8”: The renovation of a utopia

In the Parisian suburb of  Saint-Denis, residents demand the renovation of Ilôt 8, an emblematic residential building from the era of the utopian architecture that followed the revolutionary thought of May ‘68. Read the full story