Lee Shulman and Omar Victor Diop bring 'Being There' to Les Rencontres d'Arles

Lee Shulman and Omar Victor Diop’s collaborative project 'Being There' opens at Les Rencontres d’Arles on July 6 and runs through October 4, 2026 at the Ancien Collège Mistral in Arles. Produced by the festival, the exhibition is built from fragments of family-album imagery made in North America in the 1950s and 1960s, and it uses those vernacular photographs to examine visibility, representation and the narratives inherited from the period.

According to the festival’s exhibition text, the source photographs evoke moments of celebration and intimacy while also reflecting an era marked by economic recovery, Cold War tensions, racial segregation and civil-rights struggle. Shulman and Diop intervene directly in these scenes, adding a Black presence where it would have been historically excluded. The result, the festival says, is a body of work that disrupts the apparent innocence of the originals and recasts them as commentary on race, class and historical exclusion.

The project maintains the grain and surface quality of the original photographs, using that visual continuity to heighten the tension between what appears ordinary and what is actually being challenged. The intervention is described as both unsettling and playful, but also sharply critical, with Diop’s insertion into the images functioning as a quiet act of defiance. Rather than resolving those tensions, 'Being There' asks viewers to reflect on the structures behind what is seen and what is absent.

Les Rencontres d’Arles presents the exhibition as part of its 2026 program at Ancien Collège Mistral, with opening hours listed as 9:30 AM to 7:30 PM. The exhibition is credited as produced by Les Rencontres d’Arles, and the page notes courtesy of Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière and Magnin-A Gallery. The publication 'Being There', issued by Textuel in 2023, is also listed alongside the exhibition materials.

The series predates the Arles presentation: Being There was published as a book by Textuel in 2023, and the work reached Arles through the festival's own production rather than a touring gallery show. The Edwynn Houk Gallery newsletter that flagged the exhibition describes the series more bluntly, as an intervention in 1950s and 1960s vernacular colour photographs to investigate race, class and historical exclusion.

Les Rencontres d'Arles also scheduled related programming in the festival's opening week. On 10 July 2026 a panel discussion breakfast with Lee Shulman and Omar Victor Diop was led by art historian Taous Dahmani at the Croisière, followed by a signing. On 11 July the artists gave an exhibition tour of 'The Anonymous Project Being There' at Ancien Collège Mistral, and a separate conference the same day, 'Reading and Manipulating Images', was staged as part of The Eyes Talks at Cour Fanton. The exhibition itself remains open daily from 9:30 AM to 7:30 PM until 4 October 2026.