Raymond Depardon - Communes

After the inhabitants’ protestations, the project was finally abandoned in 2015. The villages have once again turned into living places, with their cobbled streets and old houses with jagged facades and scanty windows. Timeless havens of peace, where tranquility and cool prevail.

This new photo book gathers Raymond Depardon’s most recent series: the 80 black-and-white photographs that compose it were taken after the first lockdown, during the summer of 2020, in the south of the Massif Central in the French departments of Aveyron, Lozère, Gard, and Hérault. The book includes a text by Salomé Berlioux, president of the association Chemins d’Avenirs, the first association accompanying thousands of young people from rural areas in France.