"Instants de Chine"

In the Espace d'art, Centre culturel Jacques Brel in Thionvile, I had opportunity to visit amazing photography exhibition "Instants de Chine" made from photographer that comes from Marseille.

Amazing photos and moments from his tour in China. Half and hour and more enjoying part of his memories from there and the pleasure to meet him in personal is the reason that I mention his expo in my e-diary.


Serge Assier is perfect person with wonderful humor and a lot of history that he share in the daily communication with the people that he met. I met him in the center when I went to visit the expo, he was sitting in the coffee bar early in the morning and after I introduce myself he explain me in short about his life and the experience that he gained during this years working as a professional photographer.


Like bio on his web site you can find a lot, I crop this part that will illustrate at least litlle part from his story:

Photographie : ©Serge Assier

Born on 1st July 1946 in Cavaillon (Vaucluse), France.
Taught himself photography. Lives and works in Marseilles (France).
Jean Roque Award 2000 : Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Marseilles, Tuesday 28
November 2000, Fine Arts class. Protactor Georges Bergoin.
Entry in the Who’s Who In France, 35th edition 2003-2004 – 50th anniversary of Who’s Who
In France

At age 14, I start my path in life as a shepherd.
At age 16, I become an apprentice in an auto mechanic’s workshop.
At age 21, I drive a taxi at night and take photographs during the day for my own pleasure.
At age 28, I am photographer reporter for the agency Gamma, Le Provençal, VSD and I have
twelve other commitments.
At age 32, photographic reporter at the newspaper Le Provençal, which later became La
Provence. Today, pensioner of the newspaper La Provence in Marseille.

As I have strong passions for the picture, I feel best when there is an urgency, a social event
or some extraordinary fact. During twenty years, I have also worked for the show business,
especially the Cannes Festival.

My ambition is to leave traces by my looking at things only. Until now, I have created 19
photo exhibitions. This means working profoundly on the sensitivity, the emotions and the
austerity of human beings, no matter what their race, religion, hometown or country is.
I also work on the dream and the purely imaginative with photographic poetry, female nudes
in strange places where dreams become reality. I have been very fortunate to cooperate with
poets, writers, academics, journalists, art critics and many others who share my passion for
pictures.

Friends without whom I would not be here today.





.. 'bout d expo "Moments of China", 54 photographs

exploring China and its villages, Serge Assier has captured the soul of its inhabitants. Living inside their society he patiently observe his surroundings, the places far away from the city, some schoolgirl laughing, kids playing on the streets, some local events, etc. Nothing seems to disturb the balance and serenity that come from these pictures taken soberly in black and white as to support the humility of this people.


The people accept this exhibition as a “photographic poem” - “moment of China”



you can see all the pics from this expo HERE

11ème Prix International « Charlemagne » de Thionville

Doing my regular Sunday or weekend walk around the center of the city, in the park and also by the river, I found about one photo exhibition where were exposed works from the International Federation of Photographic Art.

Exhibition of the 11eme Prix International 'Charlemagne' de Photographie de Thionville – 2010 where from the Jury where selected photographers from six countries: Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Russia and France. Maybe more then half of the works in my eyes were masterpieces like the photography by Gennaro Taddei 'Rencontre de l' HEPHEMERE' , 'Cross' by Vasily Peremezhko, Alexandre Parrot with 'Souvenirs d'Elle' but like all the set of photography there is just perfect. Amazing works also from Guy-Henri Vanden Eynde, Ole Suszkiewicz, Nikola Esposito, Marko Cohen, Pierre Pedelmas and Jacques Vanneuville.

the official info for this expo is ~ From 09/10/2010 to 14/11/2010 there's the Photography biennial in Thionville. Since 1989, the Prix International Charlemagne became a popular appointment for photographers, amateurs and professionals. The theme for this edition is "Dating". Participants were asked to provide a series of photography 8-10 (black and white or color) on the topic of their choice, respecting the theme.

Guy-Henri Vanden Eynde

The name of the exposition is 'RENCONTRES' and was open till 14 November. I didn't know from before that they use this space for exhibitions also, I attend concert there before. This time the space was designed and adapted for this exhibition. The interest for the expo is also big the public was the one who attracted me to enter inside and see whats happening.

Gennaro Taddéi

the first photography is from Alexandre Parrot

FJT expo

One of the things that Mara (the exTogether volunteer) from Swiss made with the little help of me, was organizing small exhibitions of photography in the place where we live. Frontieres des jeunes travaillers or also famous as FJT host in their entrance 10 big prints of photos made by the members of Together representing the diversity of the colors in the country flags. With this play of the colors and the combination between them the people who live in FJT had the opportunity to see some of the youth work that our organisation is doing but also to learn more about the countries part of EU and also bit about their basic information, culture, tradition.

The exhibition was on of the tasks that Mara should do as connection between Together the organisation responsible for her EVS and FJT the institution that host her for her voluntary service. The program manager in FJT was great also and help with the work. :)
Like all the exhibition was pretty well accepted from the people here, they were interesting in the countries that we present and also in the program that we use.

Very soon we'll make some other form of promoting Together in the building that I live, especially now when Mara EVS is finish and here is the new girl from Lithuania, Monika that is also full with ideas about animating the habit-ants of our building. She already made a small presentation of her country in the same place open for different promoting stuff.
The next step is trying to do something more creative in which the young people from our building will have direct contact with the creative things that we do in Together.

What about Con.Tempo.rary arT?

In the wireless connection I found colors on the top of the TV. The youth in the box were speaking about art. Modern or contemporary?


If you still can’t find the difference between these two periods in the creative era don’t worry because the line between those is not very good defined, except that the artist in the contemporary period can use the telephone, video, TV, and all the modern technology we have now. In the modern period the artists still didn’t have some of those materials/ products. If we are looking for the right definition about the word Contemporary we know that it means "art that has been and continues to be created during our lifetimes". In other words, contemporary to us.


It is a period that started in the 60’s and the beginning of the 70’s. As we saw that after the postmodern there where still new things coming and the designers and artists show totally new ways of expressing themselves.
The difference in this last period of the evolution of art is that you can write on the paper and it is not necessary something to be written at all. It is also not necessary to be explained to the audience what does that mean. It’s all about the human eye and how it accepts these works of art. Usually nowadays we can find groups of artists gathered in community, creating conceptual stuff which are difficult to be explained and are observed only from small circles of people who are into art. Over the past 40 years we saw what kind of shapes and forms this period can create to evolve into today's level where the reception of art is crystallized till moment of refinement.

Every different period brings new waves in different fields of the normal day living. We live in time when we wait for new application and upgrade of the old one everyday, when good commercial, advertising and designs take our attention. We want to enter in objects that bring us new way of thinking and combine the elements and the knowledge from the classical ages till now. Exactly that is living in contemporary environment.


There are new lines in the forms of the architecture that starts building in the last 30 – 40 years, different relation with the theater, painted art, photography, literature, movie and all other brunches of the art as a whole. New forms were born like art installations, multimedia, visual art etc. There are different issues with which the artist or the groups connect with, such as feminism, multiculturalism, globalization, bio-engineering and AIDS and cancer awareness. Most of the time, contemporary art is closely related to the modern, postmodern and avant-garde period of art. In today's art, materials which are used in the creation of an art-work are collection of information that the materials carry by themselves and their combination is aimed to convey a specific thought / paragraph for a particular condition.


Ones of the best presenters of this period who border with the postmodern are Marina Abramovich (performance artist), Banksy (graffiti artist), Yoko Ono (musician, artist), Laurie Anderson (performance artist), Slaven Tolj (performance, installation artist), Richard Wilson (sculptor), Philip Pocock (internet and installation artist), Kenneth Noland (painter), Charles Bukowski (writer, poet), Takashi Murakami (sculptor and painter), Santiago Calatrava (architect)and so much more situated in a lot of different categories like feminist art, neo-conceptualism, neo-expressionism, multiculturalism, graffiti movement, neo-pop, futurism, minimalism and so on.


Contemporary art is art in action. As a whole, it is very difficult to analyze it, mostly because of all those groups and subgroups in which artists define their expression. Groups create art that is engaged, which is protest or support of a political process, a revolt against a global problem, poverty, discrimination, gender inequality, environmental problems etc..

Nowadays, art is taking part of everything. When you buy products you choose those who have better form and design, on TV and internet we more often stay on some programs and pages that bring something unique and not seen before. The things that we can see in the galleries are based on deeper concept that is the main point on which we should put attention.


Contemporary artists are here to bring progressive ways of understanding the life like sustainable and innovative living with use of organic and recycled materials. When mother Earth is more respected, all her resources can be used in more creative way.
Everything what we do in present time can be seen as a contemporary way of living and the works that we produce can be seen as contemporary art. On this exchange we are going to talk about contemporary art and we will share our knowledge about art during this modern age of living. We are also going to discuss about the materials which are used by the present artists in order to create their works and what kind of message they bring. There will be workshops where we will express our ideas via all those different ways.


more about: 
- d youth exchange POWER OF ART;
- Power Of Art [facebook group];
- Youth Association Together