Nez rouge, toi-même !

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Le Rire Médecin “settled” at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris for a month. Jacques Grison, a photographer who has been working with the association since 2005, followed the hospital clowns in their daily lives. This exhibition, which began in early 2010, highlights the work of hospitalized children, their families, caregivers and clowns.
In France, one child in two is hospitalized before the age of 15.
For these children and their parents, a hospital stay or a simple visit is often synonymous with anxiety, loneliness and distress.
For nearly 20 years, the clowns of Rire Médecin have been working with children, their families and the nursing staff to make the ordeal of a hospital stay more gentle and less traumatic.
Through some 80 photographs, Jacques Grison recounts the work of Doctor Basket, Mimi Trompette, Roger Chips, Doctor Cauliflower Mister Pink, Madame Parcoeur, Huguette Espoir, distributors of remedies against gloom.
With his well-known tact and know-how, he shares with us six months of immersion in ten hospitals and thirty or so pediatric wards, in an attempt to capture that special moment when an exchange is established between the sick child and the clown, when trust is there and the aches and pains forgotten. Parents, families, doctors, and nurses rediscover humor, dreams, and fantasy in the “ignored archipelago” that is the hospital.