S’exposer
Photography students of La Cambre

11 June - 17 July 2021

Aliki Christoforou Constantara, Yue Cheng, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer, Maëlle Helias, Romane Iskaria, Mishio Jacques, Maud Langlais, Lucine Letassey, Laure Lhoas, Camille Poitevin, Kamand Razavi, Anna Safiatou Touré

Exhibition curated by Hervé Charles

“In photographic language, the term ‘exposure’ means exposing a sensitive surface, such as a film, digital sensor, etc., to light. Students apply this process throughout the year as they carry out their work. But here, today, exposure is all about presenting photographs and videos to the watchful eye of the public. After being invited to do so by Hangar, we have elected to present extracts from the work of the Master 1 course students in the photography workshop at La Cambre. This is a pivotal year in which artistic intentions germinate and blossom before revealing themselves during the final year of the course.”

An art school – and especially a workshop – is a protected space for experimenting in oneself, offering students opportunities to develop their creativity and obsessions, along with nurturing the questions – both individual and collective – that drive the students forward. Becoming an artist is to venture into new territory, to boldly address others and strive to achieve the universal based on personal concerns. 

The creative choices and thinking that underlie the works presented here certainly reflect the personal story of each student. But they also reveal the shared points that link the works of these young artists, going beyond their age, their socioeconomic profile, the spirit of the workshop and topical current affairs. The influence exerted by grip of the current situation and what it has done to our lives, our bodies and our most intimate or geographical territories cannot be ignored. For over a year now, the body has been held back and its space foreshortened, restricting its actions and allowing – some would say obliging – introspection, while also overturning personal, political and institutional boundaries. Beyond the day-to-day difficulties created by this situation, we have been able – sometimes – to fall back on ourselves in a beneficial way as we rediscover our own physical and mental limits. Exploration has by default come to encompass ourselves due to the lack of contact with others and the restrictions placed on our ability to move about freely.

But let’s set the pandemic to one side for a moment to immerse ourselves in the ideas put forward by these projects in which we find ourselves jostled by the immutable themes of birth, death, emptiness, disappearance, introspection, immigration, geopolitics and the displacement of populations, the altering of the natural environment by mankind, the changing body, hybrid, gender, censure and dictatorship, property and boundaries, confinement, hatching and dissolution. In a word: Life.

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Part 1 – « Start »  11 – 26 June 2021
Romane Iskaria, Mishio Jacques, Camille Poitevin, Kamand Razavi, Anna Safiatou Touré, Laure Lhoas

Part 2 – « Next »  28 June – 17 July 2021
Aliki Christoforou Constantara, Yue Cheng, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer, Maëlle Helias, Maud Langlais, Lucine Letassey

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© Anne Safiatou Touré, © Kamand Razavi, © Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer