Committed to its primary mission of building up a collection of contemporary art, the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA has, over the last 40 years, assembled a living heritage representative of the most varied forms and expressions of contemporary art (painting, sculpture, (painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation) and now houses over 1,600 works. Every year, thanks to the help of dozens of partners 50% of these works of art are circulated in various locations (media libraries, schools, heritage monuments, etc.), both urban and rural. The Frac is located at the MÉCA in Bordeaux, in new premises 4,600 m2 of exhibition space, exhibition rooms, storerooms, workshops and rooms for experimenting with artists, professionals and the general public.

The Frac’s priorities are to work as closely as possible with artists and their work (through acquisitions, residencies and production grants) and for the general public, targeting schools and higher education establishments and higher education establishments, in the social field and for audiences far removed from art and culture, through in innovative ways: workshops, meetings, a digital platform for digital platform for creating virtual exhibitions and web-documentaries, but also editions to last beyond the news.

The Frac MÉCA collection includes more than 1,600 works in all media by French and international artists. The collection was built up in 1983 around a remarkable group of photographs that ‘re-enacted’ the history of twentieth-century photography (Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Raymond Depardon, Walker Evans, etc.). In 1986, it opened up to international art (John Armleder, Katharina Fritsch, Cindy Sherman, Roman Opalka, Jeff Wall, Tatiana Trouvé, Jeff Koons, etc.) and was enriched by works with a strong social and political dimension (Allora & Calzadilla, Thomas Hirschhorn, etc.). From 2007 onwards, new impulses was given to the collection. More space was given to emerging artists from the French scene (Florence Doléac, Bertrand Dezoteux, Chantal Raguet, Bertille Bak, Raphaël Zarka, etc.). Finally, one of the new directions stemmed from a growing awareness of the absence of artists from Africa, despite the fact that the former Aquitaine region, and Bordeaux in particular, share a long history with the neighbouring continent. Omar Victor Diop, Amadou Sanogo, Sory Sanlé and Zanele Muholi have all recently joined the collection.