Exhibitions

In the streets of Strasbourg :
departure Jardin des Sciences reception area (Planetarium) / arrival Médiathèque Olympe de Gouges

Forty micronations, created by as many illustrators, will parade through the streets of Strasbourg to open this 15th edition of the Festival.
This year, five new artists (Benoît Jacques, Marion Jdanoff, Alexane Maillard, Etienne Puaux and Adèle Verlinden) have created their own, adding to the original 2020 collection created for Central Vapeur’s tenth anniversary. Alongside them, 3 other new kakemonos created by children from Strasbourg schools and CSCs. The parade in the urban space will take you around various Festival exhibitions: Épique Époque, the fruit of a collaboration between illustrator Violaine Leroy and the Jardin des Sciences, Le Musée mal rangé by Amina Bouajila at the Bouquinette, La Montagne entre nous by Jeanne Sterkers at the Tigre bookshop and Room 201 of the Graffalgar hotel, entirely painted and decorated by HEAR students. The Parade des Micronations will end at the Médiathèque Olympe de Gouges for the inauguration of the Rencontres de l’illustration.

Menuiserie Coop — 4 rue de la coopérative
tram d : Starcoop / bus 2 : Capitainerie

Meet the authors > Friday, March 28th, 7pm
Opening > Friday, March 28th, 6pm

This year, the festival’s must-see exhibition combines the colorful cartoon universe of Brecht Vandenbroucke with the nuanced images of Strasbourg-born André Derainne.

Each year, the festival brings together an established illustrator from beyond Alsace’s borders to engage in a visual dialogue with a young local talent. Beyond the A3 format and shared scenography, there are no constraints on the artists. The result is two series of images, each constructed in relation to the other and mutually enriching throughout this visual conversation.
Without words, the two artists’ visions respond to each other in complementary ways. Brecht Vandenbroucke’s bright colors and grotesque, Hieronymus Bosch-like figures contrast with the subdued lighting, geometric compositions and velvety brushstrokes of André Derainne’s oil paintings.
Yet both speak of a disquieting context, plunging us into a dystopian universe parasitized by brands, screens and continuous images. The same observation, that of an increasingly terrible world, but two ways of making it more bearable, depending on whether you choose melancholy contemplation or joyful apocalypse.

200 copies of the Dialogue catalog are available during the exhibition and at the festival fair.

Brecht Vandenbroucke

Born in Belgium in 1986, he paints, writes stories, creates sculptures, illustrations and comic strips. A graduate of the Institut Saint Luc in Ghent, he has produced illustrations for the New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Variety, MIT Technology Review, Wired and other newspapers and magazines. He has also worked for Diesel, Lacoste and Prada, among others. He has published two comic books, White Cube (2013) and Shady (2021), and is currently working on his next book.

André Derainne

Born in Toulouse in 1994, he creates illustrations for the press, notably for The New Yorker, Libération, The New York Times, Die Zeit and L’Obs, as well as for numerous magazines in France and abroad. The rest of his time is devoted entirely to his personal illustration projects, which have given rise to several exhibitions in recent years. He is the author of two comic strips, Un orage par jour published by Kéribus (2021) and Des fourmis dans les jambes published by Fidèle (2023).

This showcase revolves around the recent publication of the album Le Musée mal rangé by Shed publishing, an opportunity to (re)discover the bright, colorful world of its illustrator, Amina Bouajila.

By innocently raising the question of the diversity of people chosen to embody History with an H, a little boy takes his class on a field trip to a museum to question the framework of the collective narrative that we make and that makes us, even when we’re not paying attention. This album for 4-8 year-olds offers a new way of thinking about social and anti-racist struggles, beyond the issues of diversity and representation, in the field of children’s literature. Inspired by conversations with her pupils, Houyem Rebai’s writing is tinged with Freinet and Freire pedagogies, which she uses to teach her pupils critical thinking, autonomy and cooperation on a daily basis.

This exhibition presents original plates from the comic strip La montagne entre nous, scripted by Marcel Shorjian and illustrated by Jeanne Sterkers, published by Sarbacane in January 2025.

The two authors, who met on the benches of the École Estienne, have now signed a comic strip that explores the discovery of adolescent feelings, the acceptance of homosexuality in a rural environment and family secrets, with the mountain as a silent witness. The story follows Marcia and Florence, two childhood friends separated in adolescence. Marcia escaped to the big city, while Florence stayed, married and took over the family butcher’s shop. When, thirty years later, Marcia reappears in her native village, the reunion with Florence rekindles memories, regrets and buried truths.

A look back at a year of illustrated lectures. Since October 2023, the Jardin des Sciences Planetarium has been hosting the monthly Épique Époque meetings: a new format of multi-voice lectures on social issues.

It’s an opportunity to cross the viewpoints of the various speakers through their fields of expertise, as well as that of illustrator Violaine Leroy, who drew each lecture live during the 2023-2024 academic year. The exhibition of original drawings looks back on seven editions of Épique Époque through a process known as graphic facilitation, which aims to synthesize words through images: artificial intelligence, night-time pollution, speciesism and organoids… Exciting themes to be (re)discovered in images!