Bergerac (Dordogne). One year after its opening, the Bergerac Photography Art Center will inaugurate its latest exhibition on July 3. The new mayor of the City, the socialist Fabien Ruet, indicated in the newspaper at the beginning of May Southwest that this municipal cultural facility, located in a former rehabilitated school, would no longer exist in its current form. The creation of this photographic center, led by the former mayor (various right) Jonathan Prioleaud, was part of the development of the cultural fabric of Bergerac, alongside the Tobacco Museum, labeled “Musée de France”, and Dordonha. Opened in July 2023, this heritage and cultural center brings together an architecture and heritage interpretation center, a temporary exhibition space and the Costi Museum, dedicated to the works given to the city by the Greek sculptor.
Bergerac, a town of nearly 28,000 inhabitants, labeled “City of art and history” in 2014, acquired with the Center for the Art of Photography cultural facilities of 800 m2 (including 250 square meters of exhibition space), enriched with an image education program and two residencies per year. It was more broadly part of a photographic center since within the old primary school the city’s photo club and the Bergeracois Photographic Heritage association were established, created to collect, shelter and publish nearly a century of photographs taken in Bergerac.
Fabien Ruet’s decision did not surprise residents. In his campaign program, the former municipal councilor in opposition for twelve years had clearly announced his wish to “make the Romain-Rolland school an associative space for popular education dedicated to the photographic and living heritage of Bergeracois”. In 2024, Fabien Ruet also spoke in the bulletin Bergerac Citizen on his hostility to the closure of the school and the creation of the “regional center of photography” (that was its name then) whose cost “more than two million euros” represented “four times the work to bring the school up to standard costing 500,000 euros”.
Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle, head of the Center for the Art of Photography, therefore signs with “A mirage named Ibiza”, a dive into the imagination of the island, the last exhibition of the place whose closure is scheduled for January 3, 2027. In July 2025, during its inauguration, the art historian, critic and exhibition curator, former director of the contemporary art center the Synagogue of Delme (Moselle), said he would like to obtain the label “Contemporary art center of national interest” and integrate the Diagonal network, a national network of structures for the distribution and production of photography.
Fabien Ruet did not respond to our request for an interview regarding the future of the place. From his meeting in mid-May with the mayor, Michel Lecat, founder and director of the Photographic Heritage association in Bergeracois, “remembered that the future vocation of the place will be to be an exhibition space, dedicated to the photographic heritage preserved by different associations in the city, but also open to the photo club and other artistic disciplines”.
