PhotoSaintGermain-Benoît Fougeirol, (Zus)

Benoît Fougeirol, (Zus) in dialogue with student works

For this new year of partnership between Festival PhotoSaintGermain and the École d’architecture Paris‑Malaquais – PSL, Galerie Callot presents (Zus), a project developed by Benoît Fougeirol. Alongside this publication and in dialogue with the artist, undergraduate students, supervised by instructor and photographer Anne-Lise Seusse, produced an editorial object narrating a collectively traversed territory.

In 1996, the French State created an atlas of territories under the acronym ZUS – Zone Urbaine Sensible –, describing neighborhoods with degraded housing, marked by hardship – unemployment and precarity – experienced by their residents. This precise administrative tool, designed from statistical surveys, combining maps, street-by-street analysis, and dynamic mapping, structured the photographic and editorial work developed by Benoît Fougeirol between 2010 and 2017 in Île‑de‑France. Representations of 11 of these territories located on the outskirts of Paris make up the book (ZUS).

The editorial form was conceived as the possibility of associating photographed space with page space, as a metaphor for these territories. In the manner of the ZUS atlas, the edition juxtaposes maps, photographs, and toponymies. Brought together, they question the notion of perimeter, the nature of cartographic representations that produce new borders while claiming to erase them, contrast maps with photographs, and examine the gap between perceived, lived reality and representation.

(Zus) was awarded the Prix du Livre d’Artiste MAD ADAGP in 2018.

This exhibition takes place within the framework of the PhotoSaintGermain festival. Organized in the heart of Paris, in the iconic Saint‐Germain‐des‐Prés neighborhood, PhotoSaintGermain is an annual festival dedicated to promoting photographic creation.

PhotoSaintGermain offers a free and freely accessible exhibition tour across a selection of museums, cultural centers, galleries, and bookstores on the Left Bank. This tour highlights a sharp and eclectic program designed by associated galleries, as well as several original exhibitions and novel projects imagined and produced by the festival.