Le Voyage à Nantes Takes Over The City Again: 30th June – 26th August 2018
Who wants to join me? The French city of Nantes will present its seventh edition of the citywide arts festival Le Voyage a Nantes. The festival will celebrate art and culture from 30th June – 26th August 2018 in one of France’s most dynamic and creative cities, set on the Loire River in Western France.
As befits the birthplace of the writer Jules Verne, the Festival will host a collection of weird and wonderful artworks located throughout the city, providing a rich and entertaining art trail. New artwork sits alongside pieces from previous years while exhibitions and interventions scattered around the streets, quays and squares of Nantes, are all linked by a ten-mile long green line. Artists, designers, gardeners, cooks, DJs and graffiti artists are invited to express their creativity in public spaces creating market gardens, street art and sculpture for the local community and the thousands of tourists who visit Nantes in the summer for the Festival. Artistic Director Jean Blaise has been instrumental in transforming the city from one that was in serious decline to a cultural powerhouse through permanent and temporary artistic attractions created by both French and international artists – he says: “The idea of the festival is to colonise every part of town with artistic creation”.
Last year’s cultural highlight was the long-awaited re-opening of the Musée d’Arts de Nantes, one of the largest Fine Arts museums outside Paris, transformed and extended by the London-based architectural practice Stanton Williams. This year, the Musée will play host to an array of site specific installations as part of Le Voyage à Nantes, emphasising its purpose as a vibrant and welcoming contemporary space that is open to the city and its people. The Nantes School of Architecture and the newly opened Nantes School of Art are situated within the historic shipyards, creating a unique architectural footprint for the city.
Visitors can also explore the city’s former shipyards, closed in 1987, which have undergone an architectural renaissance, with new roads, buildings and developments all springing up in what was formerly derelict land, utilizing and transforming the abandoned industrial buildings and disused warehouses there into galleries and bars buzzing with the dynamic beat of art and culture which is at the heart of Nantes. Justly, Nantes has now gained a reputation for being one of France’s most creative cities with Le Voyage à Nantes as the jewel in its crown.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
