Today labeled as centre d’art contemporain d’intérêt national (contemporary art center of national interest), the Centre photographique Rouen Normandie continues a history that began 30 years ago. It was the first place dedicated to photography in Normandy and one of the pioneers in France, at a time when photography was still a medium in the process of gaining artistic recognition in France. It is located in the heart of Rouen.
The Centre photographique Rouen Normandie is a place that exhibits and supports photographic creation and accompanies the public in the discovery of its multiple facets.
The Centre has an annual programme of 3 to 4 exhibitions, complemented by off-site events in partnership with regional and national institutions (art centres, schools, hospitals, etc.) and a programme of artistic residencies.
The Photographic Centre has an artistic line that places aesthetics as a vector of commitment at the heart of its programming and a cultural line that places a point of honour on the materiality of the work and what physical presence implies: the author’s choice, the spectator’s time.
With a programme that brings together names such as Walker Evans, Michael Wolf, Dana Lixenberg, Patrick Tosani, Evelyn Hofer, Eva O’Leary, Corinne Mercadier, Stephen Gill, Sabine Meier, Thibault Cuisset, Charles Fréger, Seba Kurtis, Nelli Palomäki, Grégoire Alexandre or Eamonn Doyle, the Photographic Centre aims to show the different faces of photography and its uses. The programme, which brings together historical figures and so-called “emerging” artists, defends singular artistic proposals, in touch with the realities of the world, through exhibitions that are for the most part unprecedented on French territory and offer an international panorama of photographic creation.
A sustained policy of educational projects and a rich programme of visits, debates, screenings, workshops in photographic practice, literary writing and performances offer the widest possible audience the opportunity to understand the world of the image (photography and the moving image) in a different way, to bring to light its resonances with other forms of artistic expression and its ramifications in society. Portfolio readings, workshops and scholarships are added to the programme to support professional, regional and national photographers.
The Centre regularly conducts photographic residencies in the greater Normandy region. The artists are invited to focus on an aspect of the region that may echo the issues at work in their personal work. Each residency is thus an encounter between a visual writing, a conceptual path and the faces of a territory.
The Centre photographique Rouen Normandie is a member of the RRouen, RN13bis and Diagonal networks and of the European platform Futures.

