Gypsy Gestures

Jeanne Taris' photographic work on gypsy communities has taken throughout Europe, and particularly around the basin Mediterranean: Andalusia, Catalonia, Occitania, Camargue. Fascinated through this gypsy world, often despised, the photographer has documented for years the existence and lifestyles of different communities which become for she a second family. In this first book Gestes Gitans, Jeanne Taris brings together a photographic series on Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. A high place of pilgrimage of the gypsy world, this place which welcomes every year in the month of May Gypsies from all over Europe, has been photographed many times. Gestures Gypsies offers another point of view, an immersion in everyday life and the intimacy of the families of the “field” in the weeks and days preceding the pilgrimage. Moments of family reunions, preparations, celebrations, spirituality, Jeanne Taris shares them with men, women and children. Religious scenes are photographed as close as possible, without distance. photographer becomes one with the pilgrims. She captures these unique moments and fleeting, taking a sincere look, without prejudice and not devoid of a certain tenderness. Jeanne Taris offers in Gestes Gitans a poignant testimony, which combines intimacy and intensity, at the heart of the gypsy community gathered at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.