Book review: Jean Jaurès

The destruction of the Second World War necessitated the extensive rebuilding of social institutions; perhaps more significant was the sense of optimism that grew out of the allied victory, demonstrated by the decidedly utopian aims of post-war infrastructural planning and architecture. Built in 1956, the educational complex of Jean-Jaurès very much fits this general pattern, even laying claim to a particular heritage by being named after the prominent socialist leader assassinated in 1914. It has also been the subject of a long-term study by the photographer Gilles Raynaldy, recently published by Purpose Editions. While Reynaldy has observed nearly every aspect of this sprawling site in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil, what really dominates the work is his attentiveness to the experience of the students themselves, who are a visible or implied presence in almost all the pictures.

Just as significant is the architecture of this vast site, functional and modernist, a machine for better living that suggests the aspiration of its designers to create a new, improved society on the ruins of the old. Subsequent experience has shown this would not be the case, however, and Raynaldy concentrates instead the ways in which people, students and teachers alike, occupy these imposing spaces, making them their own. Being framed at such close quarters means they never appear overwhelmed by the complex itself, except perhaps in the elevated views of the outdoor areas such as the playgrounds, but Raynaldy is also successful in giving a sense of just how labyrinthine the site is; spaces never seem to repeat, but are all somehow the same. By opening the book with views of the surrounding suburban streets we also get an idea of how the complex is located, both physically and perhaps also historically, connecting it to trends in post-war urban development.

In creating the work Raynaldy has adopted a number of diverse strategies to picture all the various aspects of the institution. More than this purely functional intent however, the stylistic shifts in the work might well be understood as stemming from a desire to broaden the restrictive palette of photography that engages with long-form narratives, where the aim is not so much to ‘tell a story’ as it is to synthesize a range of different perspectives into a single arc. To this end he employs a wide selection of visual strategies, from typographical studies of the school complex and its surrounding area to stark black and white portraits of individual students to intimate, more classically ‘documentary’ images of the classrooms. It is a difficult balancing act bringing all this together and at times the sheer amount of material can be overwhelming. A more concise edit would definitely have been beneficial, reigning in the diversity of styles to a more manageable range. 

Where Raynaldy’s efforts have proved most effective is in capturing the sense of the intuition as an evolving, almost organic space, where the students and staff are part of the overall organism. He does this by dividing our attention between the dynamics of the classrooms and what is required to keep the whole operation functioning, so we see workers clear back overgrown ground and cleaners (or perhaps canteen staff) relax around a table, where one rests her head. Most revealing are the moments of intimacy plucked from the flow of faces and days; we see the intensity of teenage friendships, the look of tiredness on a teacher’s face. Raynaldy is gratifying alert to these moments and they are what really involve us in the story he is telling about the school, which is a microcosm of the society that surrounds it, with the same aspirations, the same failures.

Another aspect of the work, visible in the individual portraits of the students, is the sense of uncertainty about themselves – and one supposes, the future – that is so clearly apparent in how they present themselves to the camera. Perhaps it is because these particular students are waiting for an exam that they seem so apprehensive, but the function of the pictures within the narrative connects it, at least thematically, to the end of adolescence and to fears about growing up. This is also reinforced by the structure of the book, which suggests a distinct progression or passage through the institution, from the journey there to the rituals of graduation. There is a distinct sense that the faces we encounter, some hesitant, some joyful, are on the cusp of real change and we get to share in that sense of anticipation.

Despite the sense of being immersed in this alternately volatile and mundane world, however, the lack of context given about the students themselves and workings of the school, apart from short captions and a brief text, has the potential to hinder this connection. It is to Raynaldy’s credit that the work largely succeeds even in the absence of such information. Something of the intensity and the turmoil of those teenage years are contained in the pictures, along with the idea of a school as an institution that relates, for better or worse, to the expectations of society as a whole. The most affecting aspects of Raynaldy’s book are those that touch on the uncertainties of this moment of youthful transition and the structures that support or contain it. We can, through the trajectory of the book and the relative intimacy of the pictures, perhaps return to our own memories of this time in our lives, with all its hopefulness and vulnerability.