Françoise Huguier

Françoise
Huguier

biography

French photographer, member of Agence VU’, Françoise Huguier works and lives mainly in Paris.

In parallel to the worlds of politics, culture, and fashion, which she has been documenting since 1976, it is the world as a territory of encounters that Françoise Huguier began to explore at the end of the 1980s. Whether in Europe, Africa or Asia, she gazes with the same singular and graphic eye that never lacks humour. From fashion photography to reportage, from snapshots to staging, Françoise Huguier’s photography documents and reveals the diversity of the world, its territories and societies.

In 1989, she travels the African continent in the footsteps of Michel Leiris. This inaugural journey inspires her first book “Sur les traces de l’Afrique fantôme” (Actes Sud, 1990) – awarded by the Villa Médicis hors les murs. Thanks to the strong links forged during this first trip, Françoise Huguier sets up the first Bamako Biennial of Photography (Mali) in 1994 that aims to promote African contemporary photography internationally. She initiates a photographic work on the intimacy of women in Burkina Faso and Mali (“Secrètes“, Actes Sud, 1996).

In 1993, she travels through Russian territory with “En route pour Behring” (ed Maeght): a diary of her solitary trip to Siberia, awarded by the Villa Médicis hors les murs and a Word Press Photo. Continuing her research on intimacy, social life and the traces of history, she spends two months a year, between 2000 and 2007, in the communal apartments of Saint Petersburg, revealing the survivals of the Soviet world as much as the meanders inherent in living together (“Kommunalki“, ed. Actes Sud, 2008 and “Kommunalka“, feature documentary, 2008).

In the 2000s, South-East Asia becomes one of her favorite destinations. Fifty years after leaving Cambodia, she returns in 2004 to the footstep of her childhood as a prisoner of the Viet Minh (“J’avais huit ans“, Actes Sud, 2005). During an artist’s residency in Singapore in 2009, she begins a journey to the heart of the middle classes in Southeast Asia; a work awarded in 2011 by the Prix de photographie de Académie des beaux-arts.

She continues her study from 2010 to 2012 with “Vertical/Horizontal, Interior/Exterior” (Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur), before extending it to the postmodern societies of Southeast Asia: in 2014, the hijabistas in Indonesia and the KPOP movement in Malaysia, then the upheavals of Seoul society (“Virtual Seoul“, Actes Sud, 2016 as part of the France-Korea crossover years (2014-2015). A work that has been exhibited at the Museum of the History of Seoul (2016), at the Pavillon Carré Baudouin in Paris (2016) and at the Olympic Museum of Lausanne (2017).

In 2017, she exhibits for the Month of Photography, “Grand Paris. L’approche intimiste de Françoise Huguier”. A work produced in collaboration with the Society of the Grand Paris, for which she went for three years to meet the families living near the futures Gare Stations. That same year, she produced a project on the social housing in Deauville.

In 2020, Françoise Huguier is at the limelight at the Quai Branly Museum of Paris with “Les Curiosités du monde de Françoise Huguier”. An exhibit conceived as travel diary that presents a selection of unusual objects she has gleaned from all over the world. Objects that have been as much a source of inspiration for her images and which she shares in “La Curieuse”, a book published by Filigranes Editions (2020).

Awarded by numerous prestigious prizes, Françoise Huguier receives the insignia of “Officier des Arts et des Lettres” in 2012. Regularly exhibited in France and around the world, her work was the subject of a retrospective at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in 2014. In 2018, Reporters Without Borders devotes to her an album from its “100 photos for press freedom” collection. In parallel as her photographic career, she is also regularly asked to curate exhibitions and biennials (Photoquai, Mois de la photographie à Paris, Luang Prabang Biennial, etc.).

Series

Virtual Seoul, 2016

Serie | With “Virtual Seoul”, the photographer Françoise Huguier tries to resolve a long-time enigma that haunts her since she strides up the world, and in particular Asia: How has a city become in thirty years the spearhead of popular culture throughout Asia?

Learn how to die in South Korea, 2015

Serie | With 39 suicides committed every day, South Korea holds a sad record in the world. Seniors commit suicide four times more in South Korea than in the other OECD countries.

Françoise Huguier séries

K-POP in Malaysia, 2014

Serie | K-POP, that is originally a Korean musical genre resulting from the fusion of Korean popular music and Anglo-Saxon pop, very quickly became a viral cultural phenomenon that conquered the younger generations of Southeast Asia.

Françoise Huguier séries

Hijab in Indonesia, 2013

Serie | Before the 1980’s, only few women wore the veil in Indonesia. This Islamic fashion trend has really started towards the early 2000’s.

Françoise Huguier séries

Nuns of Colombia, 2013

Serie | In 2012, Françoise Huguier once again meddled with what at first seemed none of her business: nuns in Bogota, Cali and Popoyan, the three main cities in Colombia.

Françoise Huguier séries

Flowers of skin, 2013

Serie | From Japan to Singapore, passing by Thailand, Françoise Huguier went to meet a tattooed youth.

Françoise Huguier séries

Kommounalki, 2007

Serie | As a provisional measure after the Revolution of 19717, the Kommounalkas (community flats), went through the whole 20th century and still concern 17 million of Russians.

Françoise Huguier séries

I was eight years old, 2005

Serie | I had to wait for 50 years before going back in Cambodia. Fifty years that hit hardly this country, through a history of conflicts and suffering.

Françoise Huguier séries

Sublimes, 1999

Serie | It is not insignificant that Françoise Huguier's first noticed and remarkable fashion photographs were published in the early 1980s in the daily newspaper, Liberation.

Françoise Huguier séries

Secrets women, 1996

Serie | During her frequent travels through Burkina Faso and Mali, Françoise Huguier took the time of encounter: she spoke to people, went into houses, women's rooms, and listened.

Françoise Huguier séries

Durban, South Africa, 1996

Serie | The Inkata was based in this huge port set in on the shore of Indian Ocean, in South Africa, where White, Bantous et Indians coexist.

Françoise Huguier séries

In march for Behring, 1993

Serie | Françoise Huguier brings back to us from the Far North her photographs and her travel notes from Siberia.

Françoise Huguier séries

Sur les traces de l’Afrique fantôme, 1990

Serie | Between May 1988 and January 1990, the photographer François Huguier went through the Dakar-Djibouti Mission which crossed Africa from West to East from May 1931 to February 1933.

Françoise Huguier séries