The Argia photography collective is showing the Artzainak series at the 5th edition of Arts Visuels on 10, 11 and 12 April 2026.
Sophie Compain
Recently settled in the Basque Country, Arnaud ELISSALDE has spent more than three years alongside several shepherds around Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, sharing their daily lives and their relationship with the land. Through photography, he explores their world with a sensitive eye for the harshness of the elements, the solitude of their gestures and their deep attachment to the land.
More than a documentary project, his approach is an intimate immersion, where the camera becomes an extension of the shepherd's gaze. The photographs evoke fragments of a living memory, witnesses to ancestral gestures and quiet signs of a deep bond with the land, the animals and the sacred.
The work follows the slow pace of the cycles, the repetition of the gestures that shape daily life and pass on ancient knowledge. The presence of people alongside animals, the rhythm of the landscape and the seasons emerge like the whisper of a heritage handed down through the generations.
The ARTZAINAK series is made up of around fifteen black and white photographs printed on fine art paper and framed.
The Argia Collective association works to create, promote and share contemporary photography. Through the Three Crowns Festival, the collective's main event, it aims to establish in Hendaye (64) an ambitious artistic event, rooted in a cross-border region and open to different perspectives on contemporary human, social and landscape dynamics. The collective is aiming for a first edition in spring 2027.
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