‘Clicks and classes’ is a nationwide project designed to raise young people’s awareness of imagery through photographs.

Students from primary school through to higher education do several weeks’ work on the theme ‘from portraiture to class photography’. Guided by a photographer or visual artist, the students and their teachers analyse and reinvent traditional class photography, a ‘compulsory subject’ in every school education since photography was invented. They thus rediscover this quasi-unchanging practice, which becomes the pretext for multiple explorations into ideas of memory, self-representation, belonging to a group, staging and so on, depending on each class’s project. This operation, now in its fifth year, will be gaining fresh impetus and reach more than twenty classes all over France. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the conventions and uses of photography, and possibly to awaken the desire to practise a form of art.

‘Clicks and classes’ is produced by SCEREN-CNDP (arts and culture department) with support from the Ministry of Culture and Communication (regional cultural-affairs directorates, development and international affairs department), the Ministry of Education and Research (general directorate of school teaching), the ‘photography’ resource centres, the French National Library (BNF) and the Rencontres d’Arles.

Partners: Les ateliers de l’image/La Traverse, Rencontres d’Arles, Association Fotokino, Instant d’Année, Centre Méditerranéen de la Photographie, Centre Photographique Ile-de-France, Musée Nicéphore Nièpce, Atelier Noir de Vigne, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, L’Imagerie, Arthothèque Vitré, Centre de photographie de Lectoure.

Artists: Erick Gudimard, Philippe Chancel, Manuel Salvat, Caroline Chevalier, Martial Dubreucq, Léa Aouzan, Svetlana Loboff, Denis Darzacq, Carole Fékété, Folly Afahounko, Vincent Leprovost, Eric Dydim, Chimène Deneulin, Florence Lebert, Gaëlle Magder, Pascal Mirande, Muriel Bordier, Isabelle Souriment, Arno Fabre, Sylvie Fontayne.

Classes: Lycée Professionnel de Vedène, Ecole Benoît Franck d’Arles, Collège Ampère d’Arles, Collège des Gorguettes de Cassis, Collège Elie Coutarel d’Istres, Ecole Marie Renoir de Bastia, Ecole Alata Tuscia d’Ajaccio, Collège Romain Rolland de Clichy-sous-Bois, Collège Gasnier Guy Sainte-Bathilde de Chelles, Ecole Henry Wallon de Vitry-sur-Seine, Ecole Pierre Vaux de Chalon, Collège de Behren les Forbachs, Collège Jacques Brel de Guérande, Ecole élémentaire des Tournelles de Paris, Ecole Jean Moulin de Vannes, Ecole Jean de la Fontaine de Lorient, Collège Charles le Goffic de Lannion, Ecole publique de Domagne, Collège Vert d’Aignan, Lycée Victor Hugo de Colomiers, Collège Saut-de-Sabo de Saint-Juéry.

Education authorities: Aix-Marseille, Corsica, Créteil, Dijon, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Paris, Rennes, Toulouse.