The Arles Project

The Arles Project 2025

Apply now to reserve your place in Arles, France.

DATES: June 18 - July 17, 2025

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The Arles Project

Mentored by a team of award-winning journalists and professors with international experience, students will explore Arles, one of the most beautiful cities in the South of France. With its rich history, diverse population, and international photography and world music festivals, Arles provides an inspiring backdrop for aspiring foreign correspondents and others seeking opportunities to report overseas.

Arles is a haven for archaeologists, ecologists, photographers and art specialists, and it provides a microcosm of French life and culture.  Students can report on environment, food, the arts, social issues, or other topics of their choosing.

The City

After Vincent van Gogh convalesced at the Hôtel de Dieu, his paintings of its garden became so famous that it was renamed the Espace van Gogh. Photo by Katie Thornton

Situated at the apex of the delta formed by the Rhône river and the Mediterranean sea, Arles became a strategically important provincial capital of ancient Rome, and several impressive ancient Roman monuments remain, including an arena that still hosts concerts and bull races. Its proximity to the Camargue salt marshes has made it a premier location for the study of Mediterranean wetlands. 

The city also attracted some of Europe’s most famous artists, including Vincent Van Gogh, who produced an astounding collection of more than 300 paintings and drawings of the city and its environs during the 15 months he lived there. 

Photographers: Arles is a major center for photography and we will attend the inspiring Rencontres d'Arles international photography festival, which brings photographers from all over the world to Arles. You'll get to shoot ancient monuments, intimate street scenes and the Camargue marshlands, where wild horses, bulls and flamingos roam free.

We will also be there for Les Suds, à Arles, a weeklong world music festival that takes over the city’s historical buildings, squares and streets.

During this four-week program, you will learn how to:

• research and report a story in a foreign setting
• interview sources with the help of an interpreter
• produce text, photos and/or multimedia content for publication under the guidance of an experienced mentor

Available Cultural Activities

• Arles Saturday Market is one of the largest open-air markets in France and a treasure trove of story ideas. Here you’ll meet farmers, fisherman, craftspeople and cheesemakers from across the region.
• Arles has some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the region – and without the crowds you’ll find in Rome. You’ll visit the classical theater, the arena, the necropole or cemetery and the remains of the Roman baths, some of which date back to the first century B.C. 

• The LUMA Foundation and its distinctive Frank Gehry-designed tower and garden offers artists new perspectives for creation, collaboration, and presentation of their work to the public.

• a Van Gogh Walking Tour, which allows you to retrace the artist’s steps and see the gardens, streets and monuments that inspired him. 

Travel Opportunities

Students will be able to visit Paris, just four hours away by the high-speed TGV train

Students will have two three-day weekends free to explore Arles on their own or take day trips to nearby picturesque medieval villages and the Camargue, a nature reserve famous for its white horses and pink flamingos. You’ll also be able to plan a weekend getaway to Paris, which is just 4 hours away by the high-speed TGV train.

Academic Credit

Students sing at the farewell party of the Arles Project in 2023. Photo: Deni Chamberlin

Students have the option to earn three credits of an upper-division journalism elective for this course. The credits will be issued by the University of Jamestown, and we will work with you so they are easily transferable to your university. Transfer credit ultimately depends on a student's home university. The cost for academic credit is $450 (See the FAST FACTS at the top of the page for Program Cost).

Housing

Arles is a small, safe, walkable city with charming streets and historic buildings. Photo by Baptiste Buisson on Unsplash

Program participants will stay with host families in Arles. Accommodations include daily breakfast and dinner will be provided daily four nights a week.

Host families provide : 

• Single or double bedrooms 
• Shared or individual bathrooms 
• All breakfasts and four dinners per week 
• Sheets, towels and laundry facilities

Host families are carefully selected and regularly visited in order to ensure students’ safety and comfort. The network of host families is made up of different family types: young families with children, couples without children, empty nesters, etc. Students are asked to provide detailed information about their housing requirements when signing up for our program. Arles à la carte then carefully matches students with host families, taking into consideration any allergies, health or diet requirements and specific living requests. 

Our host families all live in the center of Arles within a 20- to 25-minute walk of the Arles à la carte language center, and everything in town is easily accessible on foot, from the historical monuments to the main shopping streets.

Equipment

A student shoots the Fête du Costume d'Arles, an annual festival in which residents dress in traditional costumes. Photo: Laird Harrison

Students should bring their own laptop computers and mobile phones, as well as digital or video cameras and audio recorders if they have them.

French Language Instruction and Interpreters

All language instruction and interpreters will be furnished by Arles à la carte, a language school in the center of the city. Lessons will include classroom instruction in small groups, as well as outside-the-classroom activities, such as shopping in the market or ordering in a cafe. No French language background is necessary; instruction will be provided at the beginner level. An intermediate class may be offered, based on enrollment and demand.  

Arles à la carte's bilingual staff will help students set up interviews and provide interpreting services.

Students

A student interviews singers after their performance at Fête de la Musique, the annual World Music Day celebration. Photo: Deni Chamberlin

The program is open to English-speaking college students and recent graduates from any school. Students from many universities have participated in past ieiMedia programs, including: American University, Arizona State University, Baylor University, California State University Fullerton, California State University Long Beach, Carleton University, Colorado State University, Georgia College and State University, Georgetown University, Humboldt State University, Indiana University, Iowa State University, Ithaca College, James Madison University, Louisiana State University, New York University, Rider University, Rutgers University, Ryerson University, San Diego State University, San Francisco State University, State University of New York at New Paltz, Syracuse University, Temple University, Truman State University, UCLA, University of Arizona, University of British Columbia, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Kennesaw State University, University of Illinois, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Northern Iowa, University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Tech, and Washington and Lee University. We’ve also had students from Japan, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad participate.

Arles has many cafes and restaurants with outdoor dining. Photo by Lena Paulin on Unsplash

Most of our students are journalism, creative writing or communications majors; those majoring in other subjects are welcome as well. Experience working for a college or professional publication is helpful but not required. The program is open to English-speaking students and recent graduates from around the world.

Graduate students are also invited to apply. We’d be happy to talk with you about supervising an independent project that would qualify for graduate credit at your school — or to offer this experience as a graduate internship.

Faculty 

(Subject to enrollments/budget)

Built in 90 AD, the Roman amphitheater in Arles once held over 20,000 spectators of chariot races and bloody hand-to-hand battles. Photo by Lucas Miguel

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Director Rachele Kanigel is a professor and former chair of the Journalism Department at San Francisco State University. She was a daily newspaper reporter for 15 years as well as a freelance correspondent for TIME Magazine. She has written for U.S. News & World Report, Health, Reader’s Digest, San Francisco Magazine and other magazines and websites. She is the author of The Student Newspaper Survival Guide and The Diversity Style Guide. In 2019 she spent 10 weeks as a Fulbright Specialist teaching and training faculty at Royal Thimphu College in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. She has directed ieiMedia programs in Urbino, Perpignan and Jerusalem and is excited to help students explore Arles.

Deni Chamberlin

Deni Chamberlin is an associate professor of journalism at Iowa State University, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and the Director of Photography at the Food & Environment Reporting Network. She has more than 20 years experience as a newspaper and magazine photojournalist and has worked for publications such as TIME, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and National Geographic. Most of Deni's professional career was spent living in Eastern Europe, where she covered the fall of communism and reintegration of Europe for many international publications over a 15-year period.

She has several years international teaching experience in Italy, Poland and Ukraine, where she was a Fulbright Scholar in 2016-17. Although Deni loves shooting film, she is a strong advocate of the power of multimedia as a storytelling tool, and focuses her work and teaching on multimedia storytelling. Deni teaches photography in Urbino and Arles.

Professor Laird Harrison shares a story with students from the 2023 Arles Project. Photo: Deni Chamberlin

Instructor Laird Harrison (reporting and writing) writes fiction and nonfiction about science and medicine. His work has appeared in magazines (TIME, Audubon, Discover, Men’s Fitness, Health) and newspapers (San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press), and on Web sites (Salon, Reuters, MSNBC, CNN.com). He has produced video for websites including Smithsonianmag.com and audio for KQED and WUNC public media stations. His novel, Fallen Lake, was published in 2012. Laird has taught writing at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley Extension and Mediabistro. He grew up in Berkeley, California, and studied creative writing and politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

View complete faculty biographies on our Arles Faculty Page.

Program Cost

Local host families will provide lodging. Photo by Baptiste Buisson on Unsplash

The cost is $5,845 plus airfare. The price includes housing with daily breakfast and four dinners weekly, instruction, basic travel insurance, welcome and farewell dinners, and interpreters. An optional 3 credits can be purchased for an additional $450.  

Application Deadline Details

Our final application deadline for Summer 2025 programs is February 15, 2025. Applications submitted after the deadline will be accepted on a rolling basis dependent on program capacity. 

Submitting your application by the priority deadline means you will be accepted to a priority spot on the program of your choosing, as well as secure additional time to prepare for payment deadlines and scholarship and financial aid opportunities.  

If you do not have the necessary access to submit your application by the deadline, please reach out to admissions@ieimedia.com to speak with an advisor.

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