RAYMOND DEPARDON, COMMUNES

In Communes, French photographer Raymond Depardon (born 1942) explores the villages of the Mediterranean inland region, in the South of France. These villages have long been abandoned, threatened by the "Nant concession," a shale gas extraction project that was heavily protested by inhabitants and finally abandoned in 2015. Since then, the villages, with their cobbled streets and old houses with jagged facades and scanty windows, have once again become inhabited by people. The villages represent havens where tranquility and cool prevail.