Artist Talk

Talks:
VIES INFIMES, VIES INFÂMES. QUELQUES RÉFLEXIONS SUR LA PHOTOGRAPHIE QUEER
by HÉLÈNE GIANNECCHINI, author and curator
Wed. 10.02.27 / 7:00 pm / BOZAR

This talk examines the regimes of visibility that have historically shaped, and continue to determine, the presence of gender minorities in the photographic image. Archival erasure and the scarcity of visual sources paradoxically coexist with stereotyped hypervisibility. In response to these assignations, emancipatory practices — self-representation, community archives, the subversion of visual codes — reconfigure the relationship to the medium. The aim is thus to uncover the mechanisms by which photography, far from being a mere vector of representation, actively participates in the social construction of gender identities and can, depending on its uses, either reproduce norms or become a tool for subjective reappropriation.

Hélène Giannecchini is a French writer, art theorist and curator. A doctor of literature, she specialises in the relationship between text and image, as well as in the history of photography and contemporary art. She has devoted a significant part of her research to the photographer and writer Alix Cléo Roubaud, notably curating a major retrospective of her work at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2014.

She has taught contemporary art theory at the École européenne supérieure de l'image. She was a fellow at the Villa Médicis (2018-2019) and then a resident at the Villa Albertine.

Her best-known books include Une image peut-être vraie (2014), Voir de ses propres yeux (2020) and Un désir démesuré d'amitié. Her recent work focuses notably on LGBTQI+ archives, minority narratives and the cultural history of queer communities.

in collaboration with Contretype
JAP MEMBERS: FREE / €10 / €7