1839. La photographie offerte par les Académies

On the occasion of the Bicentenary of Photography, Lorraine de Sagazan creates an immersive theatrical performance based on a founding moment: the official revelation of the daguerreotype at the Académie des sciences, on 19 August 1839.

Beneath the dome of the Institut de France, the show re-enacts the two speeches delivered by François Arago at the Académie des sciences, while giving voice to the forgotten, competing, or marginalized figures who also took part in the invention of photography: Nicéphore Niépce, William Henry Fox Talbot, Hippolyte Bayard, Hercule Florence, as well as journalists, scientists, witnesses, and commentators of the period.

Conceived as a vivid journey into the origins of the photographic image, this creation blends theater, archives, projections, sounds, and object manipulation. It recreates the intellectual, political, and media ferment of the year 1839, when photography emerged in the public sphere as a promise of a visual revolution.

Bringing the history of science, the history of art, and live performance into dialogue, Lorraine de Sagazan explores how founding narratives are crafted: how does an invention become a myth? Who writes history? Who fades from it?