PhotoSaintGermain - Françoise Huguier, L'œil voyageur

Françoise Huguier, The Travelling Eye

A major figure of contemporary French photography, Françoise Huguier has profoundly refreshed the documentary gaze, freeing it from its sole journalistic vocation.

Since the 1970s, she has built a free, singular body of work, at the crossroads of reportage, portraiture, and fashion photography. After beginnings in the press, notably for Libération where she worked starting in the early 1980s, especially alongside Christian Caujolle.

From Africa to Asia, from Russia to Korea, her countless travels are opportunities to explore distant lands, but above all to meet those who inhabit them.

"The curious one," as she likes to call herself, favors immersion and the long term to capture gestures, bodies, interiors, the details and secrets of everyday life. Her style is distinguished by bold framing, special attention to colors and materials, and a very personal way of bringing strangeness to light at the heart of reality.

Whether photographing the women of Mali, the communal apartments of Saint Petersburg, or the nights of Seoul, Huguier always blends social observation, sensuality, and a cinematic dimension. Each of her travels thus becomes a full-fledged project, which extends over time through exhibitions and publications, among them Sur les traces de l’Afrique fantôme, En route pour Behring, Secrètes, Sublimes, or Kommounalki.

Huguier’s work also bears witness to pioneering engagement, notably with the creation of the Bamako Photography Biennale in 1994, which helped gain recognition for contemporary African photography.

Elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2023, Françoise Huguier stands today as one of the great voices of documentary photography, whose freedom of vision continues to broaden the horizons of the medium.

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.