The Villa Pérochon library
The Villa Pérochon offers a library of over 1,000 books on contemporary photography. Monographs, exhibition catalogs and theoretical works are available for consultation at the Villa reception desk, and can be borrowed free of charge by members of the association.
Discover the library’s new releases and favourites!
Favourite
To the shadows
Simon Vansteenwinckel – lamaindonne
Every December, members of the Lakota (Sioux) tribes of North and South Dakota undertake a 450 km ride in memory of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. Despite very precarious living conditions on their reservations, marked by poverty, violence and limited access to basic resources, their resilience, spirituality and pride remain intact. This spiritual ride, Omaka Tokatakiya (Future Generations Ride), is a transmission ritual where elders and young people share knowledge, traditions and collective strength, far from media stereotypes.
This book won the Prix Nadar – Gens d’images 2025.
Available for consultation at the Villa Pérochon reception desk.
Order from the publisher’s website.
On sale at the Villa Pérochon reception desk
The Firm
Richard Pak – Atelier EXB
Tristan da Cunha, a tiny volcanic island measuring just under 100 square kilometers, was discovered in 1506 by the Portuguese navigator of the same name. Photographer Richard Pak’s book La Firme tells the singular story of the community that gradually settled on this remote island, how it evolved and passed on its idealistic founding principles of equality and sharing over the generations. The book is the culmination of a long-term documentary project in which the photographer lived in immersion with this community. The visual corpus is complemented by extracts from the photographer’s logbook. In this way, Richard Pak questions the meaning and limits of this utopian regime based on mutual aid and sharing in today’s context.
An essay by Michel Poivert recontextualizes this work in the history of photography, while geographer Marie Redon, who has already collaborated with the artist, provides a more scientific perspective on the geological and geopolitical context of this volcanic archipelago.
As part of thePrix Photographie & Sciences exhibition.
45 euros
The unfinished
Julien Lombardi – The beak in the air
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia has been in transit between two states, evolving on the margins, with its own temporality. It remains outside the flow of images, and it is precisely this void, this missing part, that photographer Julien Lombardi, himself of Armenian origin, questions. The failing memory of this young republic is superimposed on his own, truncated by the displacement and exile of the diaspora. How can we document what no longer exists or has not yet happened?
These photographs are fragmented settings and spaces that can become the backdrop for future actions. Like the territory that inspires them, they are the receptacle of a new story to be written, suggesting that the unfinished is the stage for a multitude of possibilities.
As part of thePrix Photographie & Sciences exhibition.
24 euros
Jeunesse niortaise
Jeanne Lucas – Self-publishing
Niort is ranked as one of France’s most livable cities for families. While adults are quick to praise the quality of life they find here, is this also true of their children? At an age when we dream of adventure and novelty, could Niort be the city of boredom?
In her Jeunesse niortaise series, photographer Jeanne Lucas recounts the intimate daily lives of fifteen teenagers aged 14 to 18 who live or go to school in the “insurance capital” of France. From the secrecy of their bedrooms to the backstage at their parties, she plunges us into the unexplored world of the alpha generation. A generation that knows how to put words to its ailments and is wary of social networks.
This fanzine is the first chapter in a 3-year-long project.
5 euros
Policy
Jeanne Lucas – Rue du bouquet
With Politique, young photographer Jeanne Lucas gives a voice to sex workers, who are all too often invisible or fantasized about. Refusing to be appropriated, she works with them to create free, political images that challenge the way we look at them and assert their right to exist.
40 euros
The gaps
Frédéric Stucin / Ondine Millot – Filigranes
Autumn 2020, photographer Frédéric Stucin opens the door of La P’tite Cafète in Niort. Adjacent to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, this is a place where patients can come to spend a moment, have a drink, eat an ice cream, watch a game on TV, chat with each other or with the nursing staff. One week a month, the photographer will invite them to create, together, “real dream portraits”. A photograph that tells their story, that says what they want to say about themselves at that moment. The aim of this project is to ensure that the outside view is no longer an obstacle, but rather an opportunity to share. That patients should be seen rather than looked at. Interspersed between the portraits are views of the premises, P’tite Cafète and the psychiatric unit as a whole, as well as some astonishing archive photographs found in the department’s boxes.
A project run by the Villa Pérochon with the psychiatric department of the Niort hospital.
30 euros
In the house of a Goncourt
Fabien Bonnet / Alexandre Giraud – Gestes Éditions
For many, Ernest Pérochon is a street, a school, a lycée, a media library… But what do we know today, in his beloved Poitevin region, about the schoolteacher who suddenly became a household name thanks to the Prix Goncourt? At best, perhaps, that his novel, which won the prize in 1920, was entitled Nêne. The Centre d’art photographique contemporain de Niort has moved into the house the writer lived in from 1927 until his death in 1942, and has given itself – fittingly – the lovely name of “Villa Pérochon”. This house with its romantic destiny was generously donated by his heirs to the City of Niort, on condition that it become a place of culture. It has a rich history, having welcomed many of the intellectuals of its time, and lived through some difficult times during the Second World War. Fabien Bonnet tells the story of these places, and of those who frequented them in Pérochon’s glorious time, thanks to the numerous and vivid personal memories of Ernest Pérochon’s children. A literary bridge between two eras, this book, illustrated with never-before-seen archive images and contemporary photos by Alexandre Giraud, links the lost days with those of the present.
8 euros