Finalist – Prix Picto de la Mode 2024 : Sasha Mongin

Born in the United States in 1989, Sasha Mongin graduated from the Gobelins school in 2017 and lives and works in Paris. Her experience as a photographer began when, having graduated in Chinese language at INALCO, she moved to Shanghai and produced her first series on the rise of the Chinese middle class. In 2021, she directs her photographic practice towards an artistic and personal approach, exploring the boundaries between reality and imagination. Fascinated by heroic, fanciful or fragile characters, as well as by magic, colors, and bursts of light, she now directs all of her work towards an aesthetic that transcends reality. In 2023, she exhibited two series exploring masculinity at Galerie M, then embarked on a project on mourning with the series entitled Le Mourant Qui Ne Mourrait Pas. At the same time, she responds to commissioned work (for the magazine Air France or Persée Paris) constantly seeking to breathe magic into his photographs. With this series, she invites spectators to immerse themselves in a fantastic vision of the backstages of Fashion Week.

“Fashion is meant to make people dream” Alexandre Mattiussi

“This series was captured backstage at Fashion Weeks over the last two seasons. Backstage at a fashion show is a very unique world. They welcome a hive of protagonists at the height of excitement and stress after weeks of preparation and before a very symbolic climax: the climb to the podium, which is the unveiling to the world of an artist’s creations. The emotions are palpable, on edge. I deliberately chose to hide the distinctive elements of backstage and their unaesthetic decorum, to explore the boundaries between backstage reality and the imagination of fashion, and better highlight the intensity of the models’ emotions just before their entry on stage. They then inhabit their character and the creations of the designers, present but already elsewhere. The creators who allowed me to be present in the background of their shows are: Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, Alphonse Maitrepierre, Victor de Weinsanto, Sara Chraibi, Cho Cheng, Ruo Han and Benjamin Benmoyal. This series is a continuation of my work, which is characterized by an invitation to a journey where beauty mixes with strangeness, to create a dreamlike visual experience.”

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La vidéo Exploration a été créée avec l’Intelligence Artificielle. Rush, script et acting en IA

“Je suis ravie de vous présenter ce court métrage expérimental. Il a été réalisé dans les coulisses du défilé d’Alphonse MAITREPIERRE, où j’ai pu photographier pour la série Au delà du rideau. Après avoir retouché mes photos, je les ai soumises à une IA pour créer des rushes vidéos. ChatGPT a rédigé un script. “Josh“, une voix artificielle, a donné vie au texte écrit par ChatGPT. En fin de compte, ce projet est une fusion de mon univers créatif, de l’histoire inspirante de Metamorphosis imaginée par MAITREPIERRE, et de l’intelligence artificielle guidée par ma vision.”