Algeria, my eyes" exhibition

After studying for two years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, Manuelle Roche, whose mother was Greek, moved to Greece at the age of 22. There she met the architect André Ravéreau, becoming his interpreter and photographer before marrying him. Together they took part in the reconstruction of two villages in Cephalonia, designed by André Ravéreau, and then lived in Algeria from 1959 to 1976.
Despite her divorce from André Ravéreau, she remained by his side and contributed to many of his publications, illustrating them with her photos. She mainly worked as a photographer, in particular for the antiquities department of the CNRS in Algiers. She also produced several exhibitions and films, memoirs of the sixties and seventies in Algeria, and wrote novels.
At the age of forty, Manuelle Roche decided to become a psychologist and obtained her doctorate ten years later. She ended her career as a psychologist in Aubenas in the Ardèche, where the two artists had settled. She continued to combine this professional activity with her passion for photography, her literary productions and more confidential artistic activities such as drawing, painting, songwriting and embroidery.
In 2008, Manuelle Roche sold 239 of her negatives to the Akg Images photo agency (originally Archives pour l'Art et l'Histoire, Berlin, London, Paris).
In 2013, the works of Manuelle Roche and André Ravéreau were registered with ADAGP (Société des auteurs dans les arts graphiques et plastiques, Paris).
In 2021, Maya Ravéreau, their daughter, donated all her parents' archives to the archives and conservation centre at the Mucem (Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille).

"Manuelle Roche travelled the country on missions organised by the Service des Antiquités, but she also travelled on her own behalf, with a passion for Algeria that led her to get to know all the sites scattered across the country from east to west and north to south. In fact, in some of the many photos that illustrate her book, you can feel a particular emotion, particularly in the palette of landscapes, but also in the people, young and old, with whom she became acquainted".
Mounir Bouchenaki, extract from the preface to Algérie, mes yeux...

The exhibition bears witness to the deep symbiosis between Manuelle Roche as an artist-photographer and the land of Algeria, to which she felt so close.

Please note: the exhibition is open from 2pm to 5pm every weekend (Saturday and Sunday).