Voices Sector

Ioana Cîrlig, Bulgarian Black Sea, Dune Flora, 2023 – Courtesy of the artist & Anca Poterasu Gallery

Paysages by Devika Singh

The landscapes presented in this section span documentary to more personal and speculative proposals by artists who have not before been presented at Paris Photo. The selection is deliberately decentred with works made in countries ranging from India to Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Romania and Poland. Artists in their singular ways expand the definition of landscape and work against the elision of the past. Having at times to circumvent restrictions, their images retain a certain opacity. Drawing our attention to the histories that landscapes carry and to the objects and materials that infiltrate them, artists engage with underlying memorial, social and political stakes.

Exhibitors list

Ab-Anbar, London* | Mohammad Ghazali, Hessam Samavatian
Anca Poterașu, Bucharest | Ioana Cîrlig
Monopol, Warsaw |  Maria Michałowska
Taymour Grahne Projects, Dubai* | Daniele Genadry
TINTERA, Cairo | Bernard Guillot
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi | Gauri Gill

*First participation and return to Paris Photo

For the Voices sector, you chose to highlight the landscape, a central theme in art history, here approached in its social, political and memorial dimensions.
What prompted you to focus on this subject?

The landscape is intrinsically tied to the history and development of photography, and this has been the case since its inception. At the same time, as you note, it remains a central concern for contemporary artists. They explore questions of habitat, environment, and the narratives both spoken and unspoken that these spaces reveal.

The frameworks have shifted over time. We moved from landscapes connected to territorial conquest, in the United States and in regions colonized by European empires, to more personal approaches reflecting the individual trajectories of artists. In Voices, the featured artists respond to their environments and the transformations shaped by war, displacement, agricultural regulation, and their social repercussions.

For Voices, I deliberately highlighted artists working in countries less commonly associated with the conventional history of photography. One focus is on Asia, another on Eastern Europe. The artists represented work across cities including Warsaw, Delhi, Bucharest, Cairo, and Tehran. Voices invites viewers to shift their perspective. It encourages engagement with the memorial, social, and political stakes connecting these spaces, while immersing them in the distinct world of each artist.

How does this theme raise contemporary questions for you?

Landscapes carry traces of the past. Time often seems suspended within them. By focusing on landscapes, many of the artists and photographers in Voices actively work against the act of forgetting. This is a deeply contemporary concern in societies where archives and their preservation carry political weight.

Contrary to common assumptions in the age of social media, taking a photograph, publishing it, or exhibiting it are not neutral acts. Working with the notion of landscape and its transformations, whether it be through the traces they carry or the objects and materials that infiltrate it, allows artists to preserve grey zones and navigate restrictions. This is particularly relevant in societies where freedom of expression is increasingly restricted.

As a curator, art historian, and critic who has worked with major institutions like Tate Modern and teaches at the Courtauld Institute, what is your experience of curating within the specific context of a fair like Paris Photo?

This is the first time I’m curating within the context of a fair. The experience comes with its own specificities, due to the space of the Grand Palais and the temporary architecture of a fair. But working with the artists, their representatives, and the galleries is the same. It remains just as exciting.

Shirana Shahbazi, Falling_04, 2023 - Courtesy of the artist & Peter Kilchmann

Where we meet – Ambigous Kinship
by Nadine Wietlisbach  

Moments of vulnerability and strength, glimpses of intimate relations between human beings and their photographic ambivalence are linking the gathered works. Developed conceptually and experimentally over many years, they share an interest in investigating the complex nature of kinship.

Artists from different generations, each with a unique visual language, are reflecting their own role as image makers not only in relation to the portrayed individuals but also their construction of a particular framework through which viewers engage with the work. Photography is presented as a social practice, embedded in material conditions and ideological structures.

The presentation loosely weaves together narratives of kinship, tracing the tension between distance and proximity, power and care, and how these dynamics can be rendered through the photographic image .

Exhibitors list

écho 119, Paris  | Rinko Kawauchi
Eva Presenhuber, Zurich*  | Torbjørn Rødland
Hatch* & Klemm's, Paris & Berlin | Felipe Romero Beltrán
Higher Pictures, New York | Justine Kurland , Aspen Mays & Keisha Scarville
Peter Kilchmann, Zurich* | Paul Mpagi Sepuya | Shirana Shahbazi

*First participation and return to Paris Photo

Through the work of eight artists, you explore connections and forms of kinship between photographer and subject. Why are these works relevant today, and what do they reveal about current photographic practices?

If I think about how to navigate the current state of our world, there are no remedies or quick fixes, but I think about empathy and hope a lot.  Empathy and hope need to be nurtured, they are radical. It is very easy to identify what is driving us apart, but actively trying to look for connections is an act of resistance. The works that I selected all show that connections are not only shaped before but also behind the lens – or transformed by machines. Portraits of kinship are as old as the medium itself – it is up to all of us (photographers and viewers) to handle our positionality as viewers with care

As Director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, your exhibitions reflect on photography from a contemporary perspective. How have your research and curatorial approach shaped your selection at Paris Photo?

At Fotomuseum Winterthur, we understand Photography as a complex medium. It is as exclusive as it can be democratic, with a long history of disbalance – a blind eye – regarding the unequal distribution of power. We are interested in artistic practices that deal with these ambivalences in thoughtful, creative ways. The selection shows how tender, radical and thoughtful connections and kinship can be depicted. As a curator I have a longstanding interest in how the social and political is intertwined – I believe that the cultural field can take the role of a magnifying glass, eyes and ears wide open for the complexity of different contexts.

What is your personal relationship with Paris Photo, and what (positive) impact has your experience as a guest curator had?

To be invited as a guest curator is an honor, I feel fortunate to work both with artists and galleries. Personally, it comes full circle: I have visited Paris Photo for many years, already as a curator/jack of all trades running an independent art space, later as the director of Photoforum Pasquart in Biel/Bienne and now as director of Fotomuseum Winterthur. I have continually made new discoveries and greatly benefited from exchanges with colleagues in the field.