Atlas des Régions Naturelles, Vol. 1
Volume 1 of Atlas des Régions Naturelles, known as ARN, opens Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier's survey of France's roughly 450 historical "natural regions". The project began in 2017 and treats the country as a set of repeating vernacular forms rather than as scenery to be admired.
The first volume sets the format every later one follows: sixteen chapters in runs of three regional portraits followed by one thematic chapter. The regions here are Beauce, Cévennes méridionales, Faucigny, Forez, Garrigues, Nivernais, Pays d'Ouche, Porcien, Santerre, Trégor, Val de Loire tourangeau and Hautes Vosges lorraines. The four thematic chapters are Amers, Camouflage, Initiatives personnelles and Piscines verticales. They collect seamarks, camouflage, the private constructions of individuals, and above-ground swimming pools. Across 384 pages the book is softcover with a screen-printed cover, Otabind bound, with a folded map slipped in at the back as an index. It was shortlisted for the Arles PhotoBook Awards in 2022 and produced with support from the Centre national des arts plastiques. This copy is the second printing, dated December 2021.
Atlas des Régions Naturelles is Tabuchi and Monnier's central ongoing collaboration. They also made Aller-Retour (Poursuite Éditions, 2025), a travel narrative told in photographs and short texts. Tabuchi's earlier solo photobooks apply the same deadpan, typological method to a single subject. Two examples: Eldorado (Presses du Réel, 2010) and EDF, Electricité de France (2019), a survey of the French utility's industrial sites. Atlas des Régions Naturelles extends that method across the whole of the French landscape. Both artists publish primarily through Poursuite Éditions, the imprint they run themselves.
