Sorbonne Artgallery

IREST – Michel TIARD Photography Award

A central language of contemporary society, photography is a privileged medium for conveying emotions and telling the stories of tourist territories. Almost since its invention, photography has also been one of travelers’ main activities around the world, capable of creating and circulating multiple imaginaries.
IREST therefore encourages photographic works that question the transformations, challenges, and tensions of tourism.

From this year onward, the IREST Photography Award is dedicated to Michel Tiard, in tribute to his exemplary commitment to the institute, to tourism education, and to students. A lecturer at IREST for nearly thirty years, a key figure in the professionalization of training programs, and a proponent of a demanding and engaged vision of tourism, he profoundly shaped our community. A passionate photographer, this award reflects his humanist and civic values, as well as his constant attention to contemporary issues in tourism.

​

Jury

• Francesca Cominelli (Associate Professor in Cultural Heritage Economics, IREST–EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

• Gianluigi Di Giangirolamo (Head of Communication, IREST–EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

• Sylvie Matton (Writer, filmmaker, and journalist)

• Anna Szyjkowska-Piotrowska (Associate Professor of Art Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw)

• Yann Toma (Professor and artist, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Director of Sorbonne Artgallery)

​

Competition Theme: Tourism and Resilience

After inviting photographers in 2023 to explore “the other side of the scenery” of tourism, and in 2024 to question the boundary between reality and fiction in the travel experience, the IREST–Michel TIARD Award 2025 proposes to continue this reflection through the concept of resilience.

In the face of environmental, social, economic, and health crises, tourism is today undergoing profound transformations. How do territories, communities, and tourism stakeholders adapt, reinvent themselves, or resist these upheavals? What forms of continuity, fragility, or renewal emerge in tourism practices, landscapes, and travel imaginaries?

This edition invites photographers to take a sensitive and critical look at the resilience of tourism, highlighting the dynamics of adaptation, tensions, and hopes that run through destinations and their various actors.

​

IREST

The Institute of Research and Advanced Studies in Tourism (IREST) was founded in 1961. It is a multidisciplinary institute within Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, offering a wide range of academic programs—from Professional Bachelor’s degrees to Master’s degrees—in the fields of tourism planning, heritage enhancement, hospitality and tourism management, international tourism, and sustainable tourism, in Paris and internationally.

Research activities are structured within EIREST (Interdisciplinary Research Team on Tourism), which brings together geographers, anthropologists, economists, management scholars, historians, art historians, and sociologists working on tourism through an interdisciplinary approach.

IREST also coordinates the activities of the UNESCO Chair “Culture, Tourism, Development” and the UNITWIN UNESCO International Network, composed of several universities located across all five continents.