Frédéric
Lecloux

Frédéric Lecloux

biography

© Alexandrine Larue

Frédéric Lecloux is a Belgian-French photographer, writer and editor born in 1972.

A self-taught artist, he graduated from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles in 2016, and from the Institut national de langues et civilisations orientales de Paris in 2021 with a diploma in Nepalese language.

Her language finds its raison d’être in the slowness of her relationship with others, and the slowness of the photographic gesture that emerges from this relationship. Having long drawn his vocabulary from Nepalese reality and the routes of Nicolas Bouvier, his writing has recently narrowed down to the banality of his immediate environment.
His photographs have been distributed by Agence VU’ since 2003. His photographic collection will join the Musée Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône in 2024. He is the author of a dozen books of text and photographs, including Népal. Epiphanies du quotidien (2017), and L’Usure du monde. Hommage à Nicolas Bouvier (2008), published by Le Bec en l’air. He has also contributed to several books, including +Photographie. Les Acquisitions des institutions publiques (5 volumes, 2020-2024), Albert Londres et la photographie (2023, with an afterword) or Jerusalem to the Last Path by David Sauveur (2021).

Winner of an Aide individuelle à la création from the Drac Hauts-de-France in 2024 for his research on photography in the Anthropocene, he was also the first guest of rn7’s Les Nouvelles oubliées residency in 2019, winner of the Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Grant (UK) in 2016 and of the Soutien à la photographie documentaire du Cnap in 2015.
After leading a number of courses and workshops focused on questioning the uses of photography, including in Nepal, at the Rencontres d’Arles and in schools, he now accompanies authors in the process of professionalization with VU’ Éducation.

He runs a blog featuring critical and analytical texts, interviews and translations of writings on photography.

SERIES

Territory of the cinematograph, 2019-2021

Series | For two years, at the invitation of the Maison de l'image d'Aubenas and the association Les Écrans de Valence, Frédéric Lecloux led a creative photographic residency intended to bring to light the territorial integration of cinema in the Ardèche and the Drôme, and more broadly in the rural world.

Epiphanies du quotidien, 2017

It's been 20 years now. Why do you keep coming back to it? It's not an easy question.

L'explication, la paix, l'oubli, 2015

I’ve always found travel to be explicable, following a nomadic meander in the sedentary course of things; other places, other people; vertigo, then return.

Brumes à venir, 2010

As a Belgian expatriate in France since 2001, the spatial and temporal distance with my country eventually grew sufficiently enough to allow me to deal with past uncertainties that had gained a large inward territory claiming to be explored.

L'Usure du Monde, 2005

You think you're going to read The Use of the World, and soon it's The Use of the World that binds you.

Territory of the cinematograph, 2019-2021

Series | For two years, at the invitation of the Maison de l'image d'Aubenas and the association Les Écrans de Valence, Frédéric Lecloux led a creative photographic residency intended to bring to light the territorial integration of cinema in the Ardèche and the Drôme, and more broadly in the rural world.

Epiphanies du quotidien, 2017

It's been 20 years now. Why do you keep coming back to it? It's not an easy question.

L'explication, la paix, l'oubli, 2015

I’ve always found travel to be explicable, following a nomadic meander in the sedentary course of things; other places, other people; vertigo, then return.

Brumes à venir, 2010

As a Belgian expatriate in France since 2001, the spatial and temporal distance with my country eventually grew sufficiently enough to allow me to deal with past uncertainties that had gained a large inward territory claiming to be explored.

L'Usure du Monde, 2005

You think you're going to read The Use of the World, and soon it's The Use of the World that binds you.

Territory of the cinematograph, 2019-2021

Series | For two years, at the invitation of the Maison de l'image d'Aubenas and the association Les Écrans de Valence, Frédéric Lecloux led a creative photographic residency intended to bring to light the territorial integration of cinema in the Ardèche and the Drôme, and more broadly in the rural world.

Epiphanies du quotidien, 2017

It's been 20 years now. Why do you keep coming back to it? It's not an easy question.

L'explication, la paix, l'oubli, 2015

I’ve always found travel to be explicable, following a nomadic meander in the sedentary course of things; other places, other people; vertigo, then return.

Brumes à venir, 2010

As a Belgian expatriate in France since 2001, the spatial and temporal distance with my country eventually grew sufficiently enough to allow me to deal with past uncertainties that had gained a large inward territory claiming to be explored.

L'Usure du Monde, 2005

You think you're going to read The Use of the World, and soon it's The Use of the World that binds you.

videos

Le Vide et le vide, 2022
—
The film Le Vide et le vide, directed by Frédéric Lecloux in 2022, was shot in 2016 in the workers’ camps, industrial zone and outskirts of Doha, as well as in Al Khor and Al Wakrah, Qatar. It extends his eponymous series published in the book In the Desert. Migrations Népal-Qatar (Le Bec en l’air, 2022), in which he documented the migratory movements that are emptying Nepal of its people, sharing the daily lives of the families of workers who have left for Qatar.

This hypnotic drift takes us through spaces that are both desert-like and stiflingly hot and crowded, frequented by the country’s millions of migrant workers. For them, from now on, it is with, in and from this new landscape that they will have to manage to be Nepalese – and to stay alive despite the inhuman working conditions, the violence, the heat, the accidents, the suicides of comrades, the ‘heart attacks’, the lack of care and safety, the rapes, the abuses, the cost of the journey, the distance from their families, the daily life in the workers’ camps, the loneliness, the boredom, the segregation, and the guardianship of the employer.

Quel côté de l’absence ?, 2018
—
A film by Valérie Cuzol and Frédéric Lecloux, presented by the Musée Nicéphore Niépce, the Société des Amis du Musée Nicéphore Niépce and the Centre Max Weber.

In a family trajectory disrupted by emigration, where should the dead be buried? Present for some, absent for others, burial becomes a place of anchorage in the chaos of migration. Even if funeral choices seek to maintain continuity, they nevertheless seem to produce ruptures and impermanence.

Based on ethnographic work, the film sketches, rather than shows, the complexity of death in a migratory journey. In their reciprocal dialogue between the social sciences and photography, Valérie Cuzol and Frédéric Lecloux seek to translate rare words on a delicate subject, and give a modest glimpse of the vulnerability of those who speak them. With words of doubt and paradox, the intimate rubs shoulders with the political, and questions belonging and borders in their broadest sense.

Figures avec paysages absents, 2017
—

In 2017, Frédéric Lecloux benefited from an artistic creation residency at the University of Nottingham thanks to a grant from the Leverhulme Trust. He is working with the local Nepalese community, on the representation of their migration experience by reinterpreting their family albums through a series of 17 e-kus, a 17-second multimedia poem.

This is the first e-ku in the series.

E-ku pissenlit, 2011
—
An e-ku about night and photography by Frédéric Lecloux for the Les Nuits Photographiques 2011 festival, Paris.

Interviews

Qatar: the hidden face of the 2022 World Cup
Human rights, narrative and counter-narrative
Round-table discussion organized by Amnesty International France as part of the Ateliers de la pensée du Festival d’Avignon, 16 July 2022.
—
Moderated by Guillaume Meurice journalist, July 2022

With Frédéric Lecloux photographer, Ronan Evain Director General of Football Supporters Europe, Carole Gomez Director of Research at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris), Lola Schulmann Advocacy Officer at Amnesty International France

Listen

Rien à voir
Arte Radio
—
Interview by Aude Laporte, 2015

Aude Laport interviews Frédéric Lecloux, Photograph and great traveler, notably in Nepal. His motto: “Apply what Nicolas Bouvier taught me on slowness and time”.

Listen

Le Grand Voyage
RTBF
—
Interview by Sara Pire, 2013

Sara Pire interviews Frédéric Lecloux, photographer for Brumes à venir published by Le Bec en l’air.

Listen

Pas la peine de crier
France Culture
—
Interview by Marie Richeux, 2012

Marie Richeux interviews Frédéric Lecloux, photographer for Brumes à venir published by Le Bec en l’air.

Listen

Pas la peine de crier
France Culture
—
Interview by Marie Richeux, 2012

Marie Richeux interviews Frédéric Lecloux, photographer for L’Usure du Monde published by Le Bec en l’air.

Listen

BOOKS

Lands of Cinematography

Le Bec en L’Air - 2022

Népal. Épiphanies du quotidien

Le Bec en L’Air - 2017

La grande route par tous les temps

Arnaud Bizalion - 2017

Etonnament étonée

Le Bec en l’Air - 2013

Lit national

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Brumes à venir

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Peinture recettes maison

Le Bec en l’Air - 2010

Le simulacre du printemps

Le Bec en L’Air - 2008

L’Usure du monde

Le Bec en l’Air - 2008

Lentement vers l’Asie

Glénat, hommes et horizons - 2006

Katmandu 2058

La Renaissance du livre - 2003

Lands of Cinematography

Le Bec en L’Air - 2022

Népal. Épiphanies du quotidien

Le Bec en L’Air - 2017

La grande route par tous les temps

Arnaud Bizalion - 2017

Etonnament étonée

Le Bec en l’Air - 2013

Lit national

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Brumes à venir

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Peinture recettes maison

Le Bec en l’Air - 2010

Le simulacre du printemps

Le Bec en L’Air - 2008

L’Usure du monde

Le Bec en l’Air - 2008

Lentement vers l’Asie

Glénat, hommes et horizons - 2006

Katmandu 2058

La Renaissance du livre - 2003

Lands of Cinematography

Le Bec en L’Air - 2022

Népal. Épiphanies du quotidien

Le Bec en L’Air - 2017

La grande route par tous les temps

Arnaud Bizalion - 2017

Etonnament étonée

Le Bec en l’Air - 2013

Lit national

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Brumes à venir

Le Bec en L’Air - 2012

Peinture recettes maison

Le Bec en l’Air - 2010

Le simulacre du printemps

Le Bec en L’Air - 2008

L’Usure du monde

Le Bec en l’Air - 2008

Lentement vers l’Asie

Glénat, hommes et horizons - 2006

Katmandu 2058

La Renaissance du livre - 2003

Awards

Winner of an Aide individuelle à la création from the Drac Hauts-de-France

For “La Convivialité. Photographier dans l’Anthropocène”


2024

Leverhulme Trust Artist in residence (United Kingdom)

For “Figures avec paysages absents”


2016

CNAP Grant (France)

For “Népal-Qatar, le vide et le plein”


2015