Juliette Agnel

The artist Juliette Agnel is presenting a new series of photographs created following a residency on board the Canal du Midi in spring 2025, at the invitation of VNF's Mission Mécénat. When Juliette Agnel photographs natural spaces, it is the invisible that she seeks to bring to the fore: the emotions that run through us when faced with a landscape, or the imperceptible forces that animate nature. ‘Through her work, she tries to convey what is in the realm of feeling and interiority. There is no photographic truth in her images. The calm that emerges from them is the most concrete example of this; they are a time machine, which also bear the imprint of an ecological evidence.

Coproduction: les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, VNF's Mission Mécénat ‘Replantons le canal du Midi’ and the Commune de la Redorte

Curators: François Cholet and Emmanuelle Hamon

Voies Navigables en France (VNF) :

Voies Navigables de France (VNF) is a public body responsible for managing, operating, maintaining and developing the French navigable waterway network, one of the densest in Europe. VNF plays a key role in promoting river transport, preserving the hydraulic heritage and protecting the environment and landscape.
Among the emblematic sites managed by VNF is the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. Built in the 17th century at the instigation of Pierre-Paul Riquet, this masterpiece of engineering links Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea over a distance of more than 240 kilometres.

The Canal du Midi replanting programme :

Since the 2000s, the Canal du Midi has been faced with a major health threat: colour canker, a microscopic fungus that attacks and destroys the plane trees that line the canal. Some 42,000 plane trees were originally an essential part of the landscape, playing a fundamental role in stabilising the banks and providing shade for the canal.

Faced with this ecological emergency, VNF has launched an ambitious replanting programme aimed at :

- Felling diseased trees to contain the spread of canker.
- Gradually replant around 220,000 new trees over several decades.
- Diversify the species replanted (oak, maple, lime, hackberry, etc.) to make the canal more resilient in the face of future health threats.
- Restore the banks and preserve the ecological balance of the canal.

This programme is accompanied by a vast public awareness campaign and an appeal for national and international solidarity, in particular through the ‘Replanting the Canal du Midi’ sponsorship operation, which enables private individuals and companies to provide financial support for this conservation project.

This replanting project is part of a long-term vision, combining heritage preservation, biodiversity and sustainable tourism, to ensure that the Canal du Midi can continue to amaze future generations.

Notre programme de replantation - Replantons le canal du Midi