Raymond Depardon, best known for his photo essays and films on social conditions around the world, focuses his attention on the representation of provincial areas in France in his book of texts and photographs, La Ferme du Garet (1995), and in his video Profils paysans: L'approche (2001). Breaking away from an aesthetic tradition that has privileged urban sites, Depardon redefines cultural priorities with his emphasis on peasants on the farm. If photographers Doisneau and Cartier-Bresson are best known for their depictions of urban space, Depardon priviliges the countryside, on the margins of industrialized society. He shows that photography and cinema can play an important role in the revival of ancestral memories and in the repositioning of the place of the country in the cultural imaginary of the French. Drawing on the works mentioned above, I argue that Depardon redefines parameters for spatial symbolism. The images of Depardon recenter the margins and establish new dynamics to preserve the memory of the historical past and to honor a present way of life that has not yet disappeared.