As part of the fourth edition Indo-French cultural festival ‘Bonjour India’- France’s cultural festival in India, Jean-Marc Séré-Charlet, Consul General of France in Mumbai, and Gal de Kerguenec, Director, Alliance Françaised’ Ahmedabad, launched a series of events in Ahmedabad.
Bonjour India 2022 will take place in 19 cities across the country, including three major events in Ahmedabad, and will be organised by the French cooperation network in India, which includes the French Embassy and Consulates in India, the French Institute in India, and the Alliance Francaise network, in collaboration with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and with support from a variety of public and private partners.
The festival includes an exhibition of photographs of Paris in the 1970s clicked by photographer Parmanand Dalwadi, “from a different time, without a war in Ukraine”.
Sere-Charlet added that Dalwadi’s photographs exhibit how an artist viewed contemporary France in the 1970s, and he expressed his delight at “showing that France and India can work together.”
The events in Ahmedabad include two photo exhibitions: ‘The Convergence: Photography’s French Connections in India,’ which will be open at Amdavad ni Gufa from Thursday until April 2, and ‘The Trip to France,’ which will be exhibited at Alliance Francaise.
‘The Convergence’ exhibition will feature photographs of India taken over two and a half centuries by Indian and French photographers who travelled or lived in India from the mid-19 century to the 1970s.
Sere-Charlet said that Paris in the 1970s was “a place that imbibed a certain joie de vivre, nonchalance” that does not remain anymore with the neighbouring ongoing war, “with Russia going to war with Ukraine”.
The third major event will be ‘S.Thala,’ a dance performance inspired by Marguerite Duras’ novel “L’Amour,” which will take place at Natarani Amphitheatre on Friday.