Bienvenue re-viewed: representing and reframing hospitality in contemporary French visual culture

This project examines representations of hospitality across contemporary visual culture in France, a world leader in cultural production mythologised as 'the hospitable nation'. Through a cross-media analysis of selected 21st-century film, photography and art, this project will show not only what French visual culture reveals about French hospitality today, but also how it informs an understanding of hospitality itself, as the relationship between 'inside' and 'outside', 'host' and 'guest'. Namely, this project will illuminate artists' challenge to traditional parameters of hospitality through their redefinition of both the concept and its practices in engagement with the current contexts of contemporary France.