BMW ART MAKERS: Les Rencontres d’Arles and BMW France celebrate 15 years of long-term partnership dedicated to contemporary creation and the visual arts.

Munich/Arles. The 2025 edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles promises to be particularly special. It features the unprecedented exhibition "Traversée du fragment manquant" by artist Raphaëlle Peria and curator Fanny Robin, the winning duo of the BMW ART MAKERS programme. This milestone also marks the 15th anniversary of a long-standing cultural partnership between BMW France and Les Rencontres d’Arles.

Les Rencontres d’Arles 2025.
"Trees are living beings that carry our memory; they are the guardians of our secrets," says artist Raphaëlle Peria.

The exhibition "Traversée du fragment manquant" by Raphaëlle Peria and Fanny Robin, winners of the BMW ART MAKERS 2025 programme, will premiere this summer during the 56th edition of Les Rencontres d’Arles at the Cloître Saint-Trophime.

"With ‘Traversée du fragment manquant’, Raphaëlle Peria presents a new body of work based on fresh research and new artistic processes. Revisiting childhood photographs from her first journey along the Canal du Midi, she retraces the path of the plane trees now threatened by a devastating fungus. By exploring this landscape of memory through new effects of transparency, she captures the evolution of a disappearing nature – inscribing absence and the passage of time into her images," says the curator Fanny Robin.

Raphaëlle Peria and Fanny Robin declare, "This award recognizes our longstanding creative partnership and allows us to go further in our exploration of new materials and forms. We aim for this project to be both unique and bold, made possible thanks to the dedicated support of the BMW team. With ‘Traversée du fragment manquant’, we invite viewers to take part in a poetic journey through the heart of photographic imagery."

The BMW ART MAKERSprogramme brings together and supports an emerging visual artist and curator in the joint creation of an original artistic project. The winning duo receives a €33,000 grant as well as production and research funding. The resulting exhibition is first presented at Les Rencontres d’Arles and then showcased at Paris Photo, where BMW is also an official partner.

Practical Information
Exhibition: "Traversée du fragment manquant" by Raphaëlle Peria and Fanny Robin.
Location: Robin Cloître Saint-Trophime, Arles.
Dates: 7 July – 5 October 2025.

A celebration of diversity and long-term commitment: 15 years of partnership.

As this anniversary approaches, BMW France reflects on a long-standing collaboration. As a pioneering company,  BMW values the avant-garde visions of artists, who foresee  the world’s future challenges. Their unique perspectives help us anticipate social transformations  and enrich our understanding of the world.

For 15 years,  BMW has provided a platform for artistic experimentation through its partnership with the festival. The diversity of projects presented over the years highlights the evolution of contemporary creation and reinforces BMW's role as a committed supporter of emerging talents.

From ten years of the BMW Residency to the last three editions of the BMW ART MAKERS programme, numerous artists and curators have explored contemporary themes through varied and innovative practices. Artists such as Alexandra Catière, Baptiste Rabichon, and Almudena Romero have combined traditional techniques with new technologies to create sensitive, imaginative, and sometimes ephemeral works. Other projects have explored intersections between disciplines – like Natasha Caruana's exploration of love and science, or the immersive installation by Arash Hanaei and Morad Montazami examining the impact of digital technologies on human subjectivity.

Humour infused the examination of human-animal relationships in the work of Mazaccio & Drowilal, while Alinka Echeverria challenged traditional representations of femininity and identity. Emeric Lhuisset addressed physical and cultural borders, while Marion Gronier revealed the world of the circus through portraiture. Dune Varela questioned the permanence and two-dimensionality of photography, while Eva Nielsen and Marianne Derrien reinvented the medium through solar screen printing to evoke the layered nature of landscapes . Mustapha Azeroual and Marjolaine Levy’s use of lenticular panoptics in "The Green Ray" revealed what often escapes our gaze.

Through this collaboration with Les Rencontres d’Arles, BMW France contributes to the photographic heritage while nurturing the diversity of contemporary expression and encouraging critical engagement with the present. This approach fosters a shared narrative and redefines our perception of the modern world.

A strong commitment to education and transmission.
Beyond creativity, this partnership is also rooted in education, particularly through “La Rentrée en Images”, an initiative by Les Rencontres d’Arles. Each year, more than 400 school classes are invited to discover contemporary photography, develop critical thinking skills, and reflect on their relationship with images.

A shared vision for the future of culture.
BMW is committed to supporting artistic creation, research, and cultural transmission in a spirit of sustainability and social responsibility. BMW’s partnerships are part of a long-term strategy aimed at making culture accessible to all while fostering dialogue between artists, society, and the company. This anniversary highlights the strength and longevity of BMW’s relationship with Les Rencontres d’Arles and reflects a shared vision.

"The partnership with BMW fully aligns with the mission of Les Rencontres d'Arles to support emerging creation and offer a platform for exploring contemporary issues in an experimental context. The launch of the BMW ART MAKERS programme four years ago marked a significant turning point by offering a selected artist-curator duo the means to bring their exhibition project to life. Over the past 15 years of collaboration, BMW has helped foster the emergence of new talent. This year, the project ‘Traversée du fragment manquant’ by Raphaëlle Peria and Fanny Robin – winners of the BMW ART MAKERS programme – is presented as part of the ‘Nomadic Chronicles’ section of Les Rencontres d’Arles 2025. It explores the traces left by the transformation of the landscape along the Canal du Midi. Merging photography, engraving, and memory, family archives blend with tactile gestures in a sensitive rediscovery of the territory," says Christoph Wiesner, Director of Les Rencontres d’Arles.

"Together, we make culture shine – today and for future generations – celebrating the value of long-term commitment in a rapidly changing world," says Vincent Salimon, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW Group France.

Biographies of the BMW ART MAKERS 2025 Laureates.

Raphaëlle Peria, Artist 
Graduated in 2014 from the École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne. In 2015, she was a finalist for the Bourse Révélations Emerige and in 2017 she held her first solo exhibition at Galerie Papillon, Paris. In 2019 she was a resident artist at Château Blanc in Flixecourt, culminating in the solo exhibition Narcissus in flores. In 2021, she participated in the Blooming exhibition organized at Domaine Pommery in Reims. In 2022, she took part in the exhibition Singularités plurielles: Azul Andrea, Eva Jospin, Raphaëlle Peria, Christelle Téa at Chapelle de la Visitation – Espace d’art contemporain, Thonon-les-Bains. In 2024, she presented her solo exhibition Dérives de nos rêves informulés at Fondation Bullukian, Lyon. Her work is part of public and private collections: Frac Picardie, Musée des Beaux-Arts La Cohue, Fondation Thalie (BE).

Fanny Robin, Curator
Fanny Robin is an art critic, artistic director of Fondation Bullukian in Lyon, and an independent exhibition curator. In 2018, she founded the Campagne Première festival, which raises awareness of contemporary art and heritage enhancement in rural areas, notably through artist residencies and exhibitions where residents and local stakeholders are invited to participate in cultural projects. Fanny Robin develops a committed curatorial and critical approach focused on issues of transmission and relationships. She is particularly interested in artists who draw from the past (historical context, traditional gestures and techniques, popular traditions, and tangible and intangible heritage) to question current events and our changing society.

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