The Construction of Countries

The Construction of Countries: the Phototextual "Portraits de pays" Series (1950-1980) studies photographically illustrated books by (canonised) authors that are devoted to the depiction of countries and cities. The focus of the project lies on the 8 most important "collections" or series of such books published between 1950 and 1980 in the French-speaking world: “Escales du monde” (Les documents d’art), “Albums des guides bleus” (Hachette), “Que j’aime” (Sun), “Petite planète” (Le Seuil), "Le monde en images" (Arthaud) and Switzerland by La Guilde du livre, “L’Atlas des voyages” (Rencontre) and “Espaces” (La Baconnière). The project studies how these book series gave rise to a visual-textual genre of their own—the “city or country portrait”—and how they related to the rise of mass tourism in Western Europe.