As part of the DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur’s “Reopening the World” initiative, the Rencontres d’Arles wanted to work with the Emmaus community, with which exchanges have taken place for years during the festival's photo workshops.

Arles-based artist and photographer Nicolas Havette was chosen to work at Emmaus Arles from July 26 to August 7. He asked Emmaus and the staff to take part in the Fortunes project, a collective, participatory visual experience that he created and has already experimented with many times.

The project presented here is a stage in this collaboration, an assessment of the first two weeks of discussions with the residents, volunteers and managers of Emmaus Arles. Its title refers to one of the community’s main precepts: "As long as we have the strength, we will never accept that our livelihood depends on anything other than our work.”

The project also echoes Nicolas Havette’s exhibition Fortunes, presented on the ground floor of Croisière.

The participants provide images made for the occasion or collected from family albums, cell phones or the municipal archives to create a fresco. These are then projected onto the walls of the space with a video projector, which has been painted black. While drawing the projected images with chalk, pastel or Posca, the participants share their views, experiences and pathways. Throughout the process, Havette and the participants photograph what is happening before their eyes. When the wall is full, part of the drawing is erased: the fresco can then be continued. At the end of this participatory workshop, only the memories of the moments spent together and the photographs taken during the fresco’s creation will remain.