Voices sector

About the sector


Paris Photo is launching the Voices sector this year, inviting three curators to develop a proposal around contemporary themes to (re)emerge an artistic scene or medium practice. Voices can be discovered in the Southeast Gallery on the ground floor of the Grand Palais. 

2024 Curators: Elena Navarro, Azu Nwagbogu, Sonia Voss.

Claudia Andujar, A Sônia, 1971 – Courtesy Vermelho

Imperfect Paradises by Elena Navarro


The works gathered in Voices belong to artists from different generations who have represented the vibrant and complex scene of contemporary imagery in Latin America. 

Whether through experimental series, reflections on the construction of identity and the body, explorations of political or sexual dissent, or investigations into the nature of photography, this diverse range of practices both exposes and challenges the social, political, and economic conditions of their countries of origin. With their atemporal nature, these works reconsider té concept of modernity as imposed by institutions.

 

Galeries list

La Cometa, Bogota* - Solo Show - Miguel Angel Rojas 

Memoria, Madrid* – Group Show - Yolanda Andrade | Paz Errázuriz | Maya Goded | Lourdes Grobet | Terry Holiday

Taller de Mike, Mexico* – Group Show - Iñaki Bonillas | Alexander Apóstol | Fabiola Menchelli | Miguel G. Counahan

Vermelho, São Paulo*– Solo Show - Claudia Andujar

Lebohang Kganye, Prisoner doing the general work, 2022 – Courtesy La Patinoire Royale Bach

Liberated Bodies by Azu Nwagbogu


The concept of "Liberated Bodies” for Paris Photo Focus invites us to challenge and extricate the objectivity of archives— both those we inherit and those we create. This challenge is essential to discover new, subjective meanings that transcend traditional historical functional understanding and utility of photography as a medium of artistic inquiry. By emancipating photography from its conventional roles, from its function in passed on histories, hegemony, power structures, surveillance, patriarchy and its role in propaganda in mass media, we can explore its potential to transcend and transmigrate into the realm of an understanding of the medium and its artistic merits—as a means of understanding deeper emotional truths. Truths that involve more profound evidence, one of having a life, a history, narratives, consciousness towards the possibility of a better understanding of a more humane world. Through recursive, revisiting and reinterpreting of archives, we open new pathways for creative expression and intellectual inquiry. This in turn fosters a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the definitive visual language that shapes our world.

Galeries list

La Patinoire Royale Bach, Bruxelles – Solo Show -  Lebohang Kganye

Loft Art, Casablanca – Solo Show - Joana Choumali

M97, Shanghai - Solo Show - Cai Dongdong 

Markéta Othová, Untitled, 2017 –  Courtesy Fotograf Contemporary

4 walls by Sonia Voss


Faced with the coercive power to which many Eastern and Northern European countries were subjected between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, artists, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, developed diverse and powerful strategies. Armed with the sovereignty of their bodies, imagination, and often humor, they confronted restrictions on freedom, censorship, and the normativity of images. Staging and compositions, interventions on the image, and the search for transcendence of the everyday were all ways to transfigure reality, mock it, or re-enchant it. The presented galleries propose to continue exploring a now historical period, but one whose many protagonists remain to be discovered by the public. The connection of the exhibited works, imbued with a common spirit of resistance, allows for cross-readings and an assessment of their current relevance.

Galeries list

Alexandra de Viveiros, Paris – Group Show - Vladyslav Krasnoshchok | Sergiy Lebedynskyy | Evgeniy Pavlov | Roman Pyatkovka

Anca Poterasu, Bucarest – Solo Show - Aurora Király 

Fotograf Contemporary, Prague* – Group Show - Libuše Jarcovjáková | Markéta Othová | Aleksandra Vajd

Kaunas Photography, Kaunas – Group Show - Violeta Bubelyte  | Vitas Luckus  | Romualdas Rakauskas  | Rimaldas Viksraitis

Monopol, Varsovie* – Duo Show - Zygmunt Rytka | Gabriele Stötzer