Ludovic
Carème

Ludovic Carème

biography

French photographer, Ludovic Carème joined Agence VU’ in 2021.

Ludovic Carème has been passionate about photography since high school, reading the reports of the newspaper Libération in the R.E.R at the beginning of the eighties. He studied photography at the ETPA in Toulouse and published his first photo in Libération in 1995. Based on an idea by Jean Hatzfeld, he makes portraits of refugee couples escaping from the horror in Srebrenica. This first experience transmitted to him the urgency to bear witness to injustice and human fragility with his Rolleiflex 6X6 or his Hasselblad.

His sensitive style is both contemporary and rooted in the tradition of portrait artists with his portraits of Malian undocumented migrants on hunger strike in the church of Saint Bernard, the actions of Act-Up or the Haitian slaves on the sugar cane plantations in the Dominican Republic. His eyes bring out the drama of the stars and the splendor of the defeated.

In 2007, Ludovic Carème moved to São Paulo to radically change his habits and refocus on documentary photography. He explores a favela condemned to destruction by real estate speculation and confronts the daily life of its inhabitants, who have been living on borrowed time for more than 2 years. This personal work which takes the name of the favela “Agua Branca” incites him to go deeper into the rift that separates the white ruling class with its empty buildings and its victims. The less fortunate limit their habitat to a plastic sheet or blanket that forms sad “cocoons” that are thrown onto the asphalt of the old center of São Paulo.

Ludovic Carème travels up the currents to the Acre region, where the springs that feed into the great Amazonian rivers are born, to meet the “Seringueiros”, the rubber gatherers. These descendants of miserable peasants from the Northeast, sent by the authorities to the Amazon forest to resume rubber production at the beginning of World War II, often mixed with the Kaxinawas, Asháninkas, Jaminawas Indians and were also exploited and decimated – today some tribes still live in harmony with the forest nibbled by these descendants of the rubber soldiers, now manipulated by the power of the food industry.

Series

Mayotte, The Qadis of the Republic, 2022

Series | The Qadis ("judges" in Arabic), lawyers specialising in the Muslim personal code, play an important role in Mayotte society. Although the island is now part of France, the cadis continue to play an auxiliary role in the justice system. Ludovic Carème's series explores this particular configuration.

Brazil - Amazonia, 2015-2017

Series | After exploring Sao Paulo in a first series, Ludovic Carème leaves the city for the deepest part of the Amazonia from the end of 2015 until the end of 2017.

Brésils - Sao Paulo, 2008-2011

Series | Ludovic Carème focused his gaze on a small favela, Agua Branca, and, in an approach radically inscribed in the tradition and aesthetics of documentary photography, he simply invites us to observe.

Mayotte, The Qadis of the Republic, 2022

Series | The Qadis ("judges" in Arabic), lawyers specialising in the Muslim personal code, play an important role in Mayotte society. Although the island is now part of France, the cadis continue to play an auxiliary role in the justice system. Ludovic Carème's series explores this particular configuration.

Brazil - Amazonia, 2015-2017

Series | After exploring Sao Paulo in a first series, Ludovic Carème leaves the city for the deepest part of the Amazonia from the end of 2015 until the end of 2017.

Brésils - Sao Paulo, 2008-2011

Series | Ludovic Carème focused his gaze on a small favela, Agua Branca, and, in an approach radically inscribed in the tradition and aesthetics of documentary photography, he simply invites us to observe.

Mayotte, The Qadis of the Republic, 2022

Series | The Qadis ("judges" in Arabic), lawyers specialising in the Muslim personal code, play an important role in Mayotte society. Although the island is now part of France, the cadis continue to play an auxiliary role in the justice system. Ludovic Carème's series explores this particular configuration.

Brazil - Amazonia, 2015-2017

Series | After exploring Sao Paulo in a first series, Ludovic Carème leaves the city for the deepest part of the Amazonia from the end of 2015 until the end of 2017.

Brésils - Sao Paulo, 2008-2011

Series | Ludovic Carème focused his gaze on a small favela, Agua Branca, and, in an approach radically inscribed in the tradition and aesthetics of documentary photography, he simply invites us to observe.

Interviews

Regardez voir
France Inter
—
Interview by Brigitte Patient, 2019

Ludovic Carème is interviewed by Brigitte Patient in the radio broadcast Regardez Voir, on the occasion of his exhibition Brésils at the Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille and the release of two books published by Xavier Barral: Sao Paulo and Amazonia.

Listen

The Eyes Talk
Paris Photo
—
2019

Ludovic Carème is interviewed for The eyes talk Paris Photo in November 2019 about his books “Brazil – Amazonia” and “Brazil – Sao Paulo” published by Xavier Barral.

ExHIBITIONS

Brésils
—
Théâtre La Passerelle, Museum départemental des Hautes-Alpes, Gap (FRANCE)
—
From April 17 to September 19, 2021

More informations

Books

Brésils - Sao Paulo

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019

Brésils - Amazonie

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019

Brésils - Sao Paulo

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019

Brésils - Amazonie

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019

Brésils - Sao Paulo

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019

Brésils - Amazonie

Éditions Xavier Barral - 2019