Looking Back on 10 Years of

“Camping”

Through Photography

Christophe Berlet and Marc Domage

Camping is the CN D’s flagship event, bringing together 300 dance professionals and students every year for two intensive weeks of creative learning and inspiration. Photographers Christophe Berlet and Marc Domage have documented Camping since the first edition in 2015, creating a unique visual archive of its workshops, its effervescence, and the singular personalities of those who have participated. Here, they give a poetic account - in images and words - of what it's felt like for them to be at the heart of “the Camping experience.”

It’s very difficult for me to find the right words to express my experience there,
It always comes in bits and pieces.
I have built my identity through my body,
not through language.
I guess it’s because I don’t speak my native language.
My mother and I have developed our own language, and we observe each other a lot.
We communicate through our bodies.

Camping brings together 300 students from all over the world.
It’s a young, fluid, multicultural ecosystem.
Which questions social conventions and normativity,
borders are displaced.
The world is constantly evolving.
It’s a multitude of encounters.
And I learn from them, by observing them.
I feel lucky to have access to their inner selves.

**My first Camping **

June 2021, after lockdown. I was seriously doubting how useful my profession is.
I needed to take a step back. The CND contacted me... on Instagram. It was magical.
It was my first commission for the CND.
It was also my first collaboration with a cultural institution.
I had been doing mostly commercial photography.
There, I discovered a different relationship to work:
more space for people,
the impression of working together on a common project.

My mission: to welcome participants, take their class photos and, if they agree, individual portraits.
Everything is timed: there are about ten schools, 150 people, to fit in two hours max, before the workshops begin.
Meeting all these individuals, all these lives, seems to me deeply poetic.
How can I welcome them? Above all, I mustn’t rush them. I can accompany them towards what they’re going to experience next.

They are young, they’re students 
Between adolescence and adulthood.
They exude an immense strength, that of believing in their dreams.
I recognize myself in them, at their age.
And that leads me to wonder: what role do I have in relation to these young people? What position should I adopt?

Portraiture is a very intense exercise.
You have to create a bond, a space where people feel free to be themselves.
It’s fast-paced, gestures are repeated, everything becomes intuitive.
And in this parade of faces, something very beautiful happens.
Character traits emerge and stand out from one another.
Each person’s idiosyncrasies become obvious.

Meeting all these campers left a mark for me,
There’s something indelible about it.
The photo becomes proof of this encounter.
What connects me to the campers?
I like to think that the Camping festival is an important step in the lives of these young artists, in their development.

Just as it has been a milestone in my professional and personal life.
This year will be my 5^th time taking part in the Camping Festival.
It has become a ritual.
Right after my birthday, and during the summer solstice.
It’s a moment I don’t want to miss.
I’ve met some incredible people and made some great friends.
Since then, I’ve worked with other cultural venues.
Camping has changed the way I see my job.

Year after year, I have built a corpus of portraits that, in my eyes, is priceless.
It’s a bit like mapping a part of the international artistic and creative youth.
They are magnificent and precious.
Being in contact with these young people comforts me and reassures me about the state of the world.

I think it would make a great book and a wonderful exhibition.
Just saying…
And then there’s the highlight at the end of each week: the photos are projected all over the CND. 
We see these photos come to life, and how they’re received.
Everyone looks, laughs and recognizes themselves and each other.
You can feel that something has happened during the festival. Something strong for them.
The photos take on another dimension, another meaning.
In the end, this portrait is like a gift from the CN D to the campers and to me.

A text by Christophe Berlet
Photographies by Marc Domage and Christophe Berlet

Christophe Berlet is a self-taught photographer. He considers photography as a means to be open to others, a testimony, and both a personal and collective repository of memory. Photography allows Berlet to find balance between introspection and an openness to the world. His images are conceived as words put together or sounds with different densities and volumes, in order to transcribe atmospheres, interactions, implications that lie beyond what is visible, beyond appearances. As an athlete, he likes to combine his two passions, which is why he often works with dancers and athletes.

Marc Domage is a self-taught photographer. After working as a printer in a professional laboratory, he started photography, following his main affinities: art and dance. He collaborates with visual artists, choreographers, stage directors, designers and cultural institutions, with a special attention to the transversality of arts. He takes a special care to transcribe the art of creation in his images.

Camping festival
From June 16th to 27th at the SUBS, the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, the CNSMD of Lyon, the CN D in Lyon, the Théâtre Le Ciel and the Studio Chatha
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Previous editions of Camping festival

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