« Mers et mystères », an exhibition by Laurent Ballesta

The Musée de la photographie Charles Nègre in Nice is hosting a sublime exhibition by photographer Laurent Ballesta from April 5 to September 28, 2025. 
Supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, "Mers et mystères" (Seas and Mysteries) is part of the Biennale des Arts et de l'Océan, launched to coincide with the United Nations Conference on the Ocean, held in Nice in June 2025. 

An internationally acclaimed photographer, Laurent Ballesta is a biologist, naturalist, researcher and explorer. Through his exhibitions, books and lectures, he reveals to the public the beauty and complexity of the living underwater world. 

With a selection of 53 photographs, the "Mers et mystères"  exhibition offers the public three moments of discovery : a voyage under the ice of the Adélie Sea, revealing the marine fauna and luxuriant flora of Antarctica, the ballet of reproduction of groupers that attract, at night, more than 700 sharks to a Pacific atoll, and the depths of Mediterranean Sea that we think we know - wrongly. Images that evoke the subtle, fascinating beauty of an immensity full of mystery that is inaccessible to us. 

The world of the oceans would certainly be a mystery to many of us if photography didn't exist. Laurent Ballesta brilliantly illustrates this with a view that is both naturalistic and artistic. 

(Exhibition views ©Arnold Jerocki/FPA2)