Nuit Debout
Meyer - Tendance Floue (France)

The Spring of 2016 was shaken by the anti-establishment movement Nuit Debout (Standing Night) in the Republic Square in Paris and several other French cities. This new form of popular protest and occupation of public squares conforms to the protest line of movements such as 15-M and Los indignados (The Indignant) at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Occupy Wall Street in New York, The 700 Euro Generation at Syntagma Square in Athens, and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong.

The movement is based on exchanging views, debating, and anyone can speak at the general citizen assemblies. And that is the committed stance of this photographic subject: it is limited to the general assemblies, freedom of speech and its urgent nature. A wealth of exalted masses, gestures and faces in tension. Far from any political divides, it is about attesting contemporary agoras and, more concretely, the appropriation of citizen debate by youth, with a dose of utopia, in a perplexed and perturbed world.

Nuit Debout adds to the great history of attempted changes and popular struggles.

A member of Tendance Floue since 1996, Meyere uses photography as a tool for dialogue in a world of images. He is convinced that the photographic act is not to observe the world, but rather to build it.

Three trips to the Occupied Territories in Palestine were the starting point for a series awarded the Jury’s Special Prize from Paris Match in 2002.

With «Putain de maïeuthique camarguaise !» he took an interest in the culture of bullfighting. As of 2003, his work was focused on seeing. For five years, he followed Cinéma Numérique Ambulant (Travelling Digital Cinema) in West Africa. He produced «Mon frère Lumière» (My Brother, Lumiére), awarded Third World Press Award “Arts & Entertainment” 2007, and exhibited at the Arles Encounters in 2007. Then, he started a photomontage and carried out «Portrait décalés» (Shifting Portraits) in Mali, a suggestion for a photographic voyage.

Since 2012, he has turned his gaze on bullrings, focusing on the powerful and controversial universe of bullfighting. Influenced by the magic of theatrical movement, he wishes to germinate a sort of enchantment by means of a mise en abyme of gazes.

www.tendancefloue.net