Mission photographique de la Datar: Reimagining French Landscapes in the 1980s

A photo dossier titled 'Paysages / photographies (En France dans les années 80)' revisits the ambitious Mission photographique de la Datar, a state-sponsored project that commissioned photographers to document French landscapes during the 1980s. Conceived by François Hers and Bernard Latarjet, the mission aimed to 'create new representations of the territory to capture a singular moment of its evolution.' The project was monumental in scale, involving numerous photographers who produced a vast archive of images reflecting the transformation of rural and urban France. The dossier, published in artpress in December 1989, highlights the enduring significance of this photographic survey as a historical document and an artistic endeavor. The mission remains a key reference for landscape photography and territorial studies in France.