Electrician, a Profession Under High Voltage

IN IMAGES

A historian of industrial heritage, Arthur Mettetal opens the archives of Vigilance****, an internal trade publication of Électricité de France. From the dams of the Cantal to the nuclear plants of Fessenheim, he recovers three decades of risk prevention among the company’s workers, in a book published by Éditions Textuel and an exhibition on view at the Rencontres d’Arles.

By Guénola Pellen. Photos by Éditions Textuel

In the aftermath of the war, France embarked on the electrification of its territory. Dams, thermal plants and, later, nuclear plants transformed the landscape and exposed the workers of Électricité de France to unprecedented hazards. As early as 1947, a prevention and safety department was established. In 1953, Vigilance was launched: an internal magazine in which photography served, first and foremost, to teach caution to employees.

The body of work assembled by Arthur Mettetal strikes by its sheer scale. Gilles Ehrmann photographs the Grandval dam, a cathedral of concrete raised in the Cantal, and the circular interior of its power station, latticed with steel triangles. Léon Coirier captures the twin towers of Saint-Chamas, standing like organ pipes above the penstocks.

Elsewhere, the lens narrows to gestures and tools. Michel Brigaud photographs a radioactivity detector striped like a wasp, and a worker slipping his suggestion into an idea box. Pierre Bérenger immortalizes a makeshift splint fashioned from newspaper. Each image imparts a reflex, a posture, a gesture worth passing on.

This visual pedagogy, born of urgency, traces a culture of risk that remains very much alive today. As EDF celebrates its eightieth anniversary in 2026, the exhibition “Vigilance” brings to the Rencontres d’Arles this little-known photographic heritage, in which the anticipation of danger shapes bodies as much as it shapes the French industrial landscape.

**The exhibition “Vigilance” is on view at the Rencontres d’Arles from July 6 to October 4, 2026, at Ground Control. With the support of EDF.**The book Vigilance, le travail sous tension by Arthur Mettetal is published by Éditions Textuel and available for €39.