URBEX Festival — Out of Time at the Château de Gaillon

Urbex as Visual Art in the Heart of a Renaissance Gem

Since 2024, the Château de Gaillon — France's first Renaissance castle — has hosted a unique event in the Norman cultural landscape: the URBEX Festival — Out of Time. Born from the encounter between a historic monument undergoing restoration and the photographic practice of urban exploration, this summer festival offers an immersion into the fascinating world of abandoned places, captured by the lenses of passionate photographers.

Urbex, short for "urban exploration," involves exploring deserted sites — disused factories, closed hospitals, derelict mansions, forgotten military bases — to capture their melancholic beauty before they disappear. The URBEX Festival of Gaillon provides this artistic practice with an exceptional heritage setting, creating a striking dialogue between the 15th-century architectural Renaissance and 21st-century contemporary photography.

Exhibitions Between the Castle, Gardens, and Town Center

The works of the invited photographers are presented in various spaces of the castle — vaulted rooms, galleries, and the third floor — as well as in the upper gardens overlooking the Seine valley. Since the second edition in 2025, the festival extends beyond the castle walls to take over the shop windows and businesses in the town center of Gaillon, creating a true urban art trail that connects historical heritage with the local commercial fabric.

The 2025 edition, themed around female creation, highlighted four photographers with unique visions: Perrine Fliecx, an image explorer for over fifteen years, traveling Europe in search of deserted industrial, military, and rural sites; Laura Del, a self-taught photographer documenting the disappearance of places with an emotional approach; Lily Stoncheart, creating self-portraits in forgotten spaces, influenced by horror cinema; and Diane Dufraisy-Couraud, blending documentary photography with dreamlike digital manipulation.

Conferences, Screenings, and Creative Workshops

Beyond the photographic exhibitions, the URBEX Festival offers a rich program of complementary events. Conferences bring together photographers and urbex specialists to shed light on this practice at the crossroads of art, history, and urban exploration. Documentary screenings — such as the one by director Caroline Lazzaro — offer a behind-the-scenes look at urban exploration. Light painting workshops, led by Belgian artist Chris Moko, introduce the public to this spectacular photographic technique combining long exposure and light painting.

Free in the gardens and town center, accessible with a ticket in the castle, the URBEX Festival — Out of Time is an original summer event that reveals the ephemeral beauty of forgotten places in an exceptional historical setting, contributing to the cultural radiance of the Château de Gaillon and the Seine-Eure region.