From November 1 to 23, 2025, Espace Saint-Ravy is delighted to host the Forage / Journal des Mines exhibition, featuring a selection of works by artists François Jonquet and Elie Monferier.
This photographic journey, conceived in collaboration with Réseau MIA, invites visitors to immerse themselves in two distinct visual universes, united by a shared desire to probe the human experience.
OPENING FRIDAY OCTOBER 31, 6:30 PM
The Forage / Journal des Mines exhibition combines the work of François Jonquet, engaged in an introspective quest, with that of Elie Monferier, exploring a mining industrial past threatened by oblivion. Although characterized by two different approaches, their eyes intersect in the same dynamic of exploring the depths: familial, ecological or historical. For them, the photographic act becomes an excavation into the strata of the visible, a poetic and symbolic quest that blends identity and memory.
Fashioned from his family photos, Forage is a project that sums up an entire life, a journey that explores beneath the surface of appearances. François Jonquet uses photography to capture his emotions and explore the intimacy of family relationships: "My family is like an archipelago of five islands linked by underwater foundations. I have the impression of being both with them and beside them, observing them from the outside. Keeping them at a distance allows me to photograph them
Like this fragmented, non-linear archipelago, Forage reveals the complexity and multiplicity of individual narratives.
Journal des Mines is a photographic work on the historical, social and environmental imprint of mining activity in Ariège. Confronted with mining sites rendered inaccessible by changing landscapes, altitude and erosion, Elie Monferier probes how different strata of memory affect what we can - or can no longer - see. He questions the gradual disappearance of the material traces, archives and testimonies through which memory is formed and circulates. More than a documentary on a human activity specific to a territory, Journal des Mines is a critical reflection on what it means to create a landscape: how does what disappears interact with what is visible?
BIOGRAPHIES
Born into a large family in the Paris suburbs in 1967, François Jonquet now lives and works in Bordeaux. A general practitioner for the deaf by profession, he developed a passion for photography in his late teens. After the birth of his first child, he picked up his camera again and captured the beginning of a new life. The result is a long-term project, focusing on family and vernacular images, mountain and island landscapes.
Born in 1988, Elie Monferier is a photographer and visual artist. He lives and works in Bordeaux. With a degree in Lettres Modernes from the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, he is interested in images for their ability to produce narrative and generate rupture in the functional order of the world. His work is regularly exhibited at festivals and galleries in France and abroad. Winner of several awards for his artist?s books, he also teaches art direction in graphic design and iconography at the École de Condé Bordeaux, and leads workshops on the creation of photographic books.
This photographic journey, conceived in collaboration with Réseau MIA, invites visitors to immerse themselves in two distinct visual universes, united by a shared desire to probe the human experience.
OPENING FRIDAY OCTOBER 31, 6:30 PM
The Forage / Journal des Mines exhibition combines the work of François Jonquet, engaged in an introspective quest, with that of Elie Monferier, exploring a mining industrial past threatened by oblivion. Although characterized by two different approaches, their eyes intersect in the same dynamic of exploring the depths: familial, ecological or historical. For them, the photographic act becomes an excavation into the strata of the visible, a poetic and symbolic quest that blends identity and memory.
Fashioned from his family photos, Forage is a project that sums up an entire life, a journey that explores beneath the surface of appearances. François Jonquet uses photography to capture his emotions and explore the intimacy of family relationships: "My family is like an archipelago of five islands linked by underwater foundations. I have the impression of being both with them and beside them, observing them from the outside. Keeping them at a distance allows me to photograph them
Like this fragmented, non-linear archipelago, Forage reveals the complexity and multiplicity of individual narratives.
Journal des Mines is a photographic work on the historical, social and environmental imprint of mining activity in Ariège. Confronted with mining sites rendered inaccessible by changing landscapes, altitude and erosion, Elie Monferier probes how different strata of memory affect what we can - or can no longer - see. He questions the gradual disappearance of the material traces, archives and testimonies through which memory is formed and circulates. More than a documentary on a human activity specific to a territory, Journal des Mines is a critical reflection on what it means to create a landscape: how does what disappears interact with what is visible?
BIOGRAPHIES
Born into a large family in the Paris suburbs in 1967, François Jonquet now lives and works in Bordeaux. A general practitioner for the deaf by profession, he developed a passion for photography in his late teens. After the birth of his first child, he picked up his camera again and captured the beginning of a new life. The result is a long-term project, focusing on family and vernacular images, mountain and island landscapes.
Born in 1988, Elie Monferier is a photographer and visual artist. He lives and works in Bordeaux. With a degree in Lettres Modernes from the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, he is interested in images for their ability to produce narrative and generate rupture in the functional order of the world. His work is regularly exhibited at festivals and galleries in France and abroad. Winner of several awards for his artist?s books, he also teaches art direction in graphic design and iconography at the École de Condé Bordeaux, and leads workshops on the creation of photographic books.
