As part of the PhotoSaintGermain event, the Les Filles de la Photo association presents to the public the restitution of the second mentoring program. For a year, five women photographers were supported by sponsors from the world of photography around a personal project. Each one was able to be carried out as part of sisterly support. From November 2 to 18, the five photographers – Sarah Braeck, Anaïs Oudart, Orianne Ciantar Olive, Celeste Leeuwenburg and Pauline Rousseau – exhibit at the Galerie des femmes, in Paris.
Coming from very different worlds, the winners bear witness, each with their own visual language, to the questions that cross a generation struggling with the rapid evolution of the world and the instability of borders and personal lives. Ecology, war, identity, memory, violence against women but also resilience and the power of words appear in the backdrop of works mixing very varied hybrid techniques and mediums.
Currents of light
Sarah Braeck
The Currents of Light project is a biological tale illustrating this natural phenomenon. Sarah Braeck collects, from researchers, photographic archives on which she intervenes in layers of gestures: dipping the prints in water, enhanced with ink, flat areas of reflective materials to reveal the carbon in the air currents and water, re-shot with flash. The entire corpus is built in strata, from surface to depths, to follow this descent of carbon. A gallery of brown algae portraits reveals the diversity of species around the world. The pictorial aesthetic of the images echoes this aquatic magic and the extraordinary role that algae play in regulating carbon in the atmosphere.
Godmothers
Valérie Cazin – Founder & Director – Galerie Binome
Marie Moulin – Freelance art buyer – Photo & film
Ukrainian pearls
Anaïs Oudart
The third part, Pearls of Ukraine, focuses on abuse and violence against women since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Nearly 8 million Ukrainians have gone into exile and among them, 90% are women and children. Members of the SEMA network identify and provide support to victims of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers and notice psychological and physical torture, such as broken teeth or electric shocks to the genitals. Mothers and children alike testify to having been raped, kidnapped, abused, tortured and humiliated. Few women still report these crimes for fear of reprisals or because the survival and safety of their children are their priority. Ukrainian exiles who have taken refuge abroad sometimes find themselves at the mercy of those who shelter them or come to their aid. Many say they are ready to welcome a single Ukrainian woman in distress “for free”. Some even go so far as to specify the age or color of the desired hair. A form of prostitution that does not speak its name. The faces of the women featured here have been intentionally obscured or erased to protect their privacy and safety.
Godmothers
Adélaïde Samani – Production Manager – Konbini
Léonor Matet – Iconographer and head of partnerships – Polka Magazine
The circular ruins
Orianne Ciantar Olive
Nourished by writings from philosophy, literature and poetry – in particular the work of Etel Adnan, Jorge Luis Borges and Mahmoud Darwich – the Circular Ruins project is anchored in the territory of South Lebanon, named here Nabil, emblematic and empirical example of the perpetual resumption of events, notably violence, occupations, forced exiles and an impossible access to peace. Like a photographic essay, Orianne Ciantar Olive traces the thread of the disaster to its origin, to the walls, submitting to the laws of politics, chance and poetic accidents.
Godmothers
Agathe Kalfas – Artistic Director & Photo Consultant – AK Whispers
Erika Negrel – Director, Diagonal network
Ella Baila
Celeste Leeuwenburg
For the Ella Baila project, Celeste Leeuwenburg follows in the footsteps of Marcia Moretto, a legendary underground dancer born in Argentina, who took refuge in France in 1973 to flee the Argentine dictatorship, who died in Paris at the age of 36. Dancer, model, choreographer and director, this is the Marcia that most know without really knowing her, the one whose name we shout on the dance floors thanks to Catherine Ringer, who was her student. But there are few recordings of her image and especially of her dance. Faced with this lack of representation, Celeste Leeuwenburg collected numerous documents and interviewed witnesses to her performances, then designed an installation which will be deployed in three parts: the first will bring together the collected archives. The second will present the portraits of the memory bearers and their testimonies transcribed in writing. The third part will consist of video projections in which dancers will interpret the archives, words and testimonies collected. The restitution presented here constitutes a “work in progress” of this multidisciplinary project in progress.
Godmothers
Virginie Chardin – Exhibition curator, author, historian of photography
Laurence Tordjman – Agent and founder of the LT2 agency
Homonyma
Pauline Rousseau
Archiving and accumulating for years, with almost obsessive rigor, the information she finds on the Pauline Rousseaus, these other selves who lead lives parallel to her own, she discovers on this occasion a Pauline Rousseau dead, the forgotten in the 19th century. After a while this indirect data is no longer enough for her. It seems obvious to her that she must meet her namesakes, first individually and then collectively. It is a true quest for self through the others that she carries out through “Homonym”. She questions History and the way in which it erases women, but also the intimate, the name, the identity, magic, sorority. This project has several chapters and takes place in different forms: videos, photographs, texts, sounds and installations. It gave rise to performances at the Théâtre Antique d’Arles in 2022, at the Philharmonie de Paris as well as at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 2023. The new installation presented here is a Femmage rendered by Pauline Rousseau to Pauline Rousseau.
Godmothers
Aurélia Marcadier – Director of PhotoSaintGermain
Isabelle Mocq / Thelma Fremont – Art purchase & producer – BETC
Useful information
Les Expérimentales #2
From November 2 to 18, 2023
Espace des Femmes
35, rue Jacob
75006 Paris
https://www.lesfillesdelaphoto.com/fr/nos-actions/mentorat-1009/
