The Archives of the Planet Between Scientific Perspectives and Aesthetic Aims

If the project of the Archives of the Planet is to visually document the world with an encyclopedic and scientific ambition, the collection of photographs and films launched by Albert Kahn in 1909 is not devoid of an aesthetic aim. Looking back at the ways in which the archives were created, and based on the analysis of a few autochrome series, this article highlights the singularity of field practices and reveals how this images dialogues with the history of 19th and 20th century art.