Opening Passages – Photographers in Conversation at the Alliance française

During this conversation moderated by curators Carl Fuldner and Pascal Beausse, the artists will delve into the thematic elements of their works, exploring concepts such as borders, margins, and the interplay between the center and the periphery.
Each in her own way addresses the notion of margin and the relationship between center and periphery. All three have worked in the Greater Paris area, and explore language by collecting people’s words or questioning certain expressions.

The conversation will be followed by a reception.

Carl Fuldner

Carl Fuldner is a Chicago-based art historian and curator whose work engages photography’s role in shaping environmental perspectives. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Chicago, where he also currently teaches as an Assistant Instructional Professor in the Master of Art Program in the Humanities and the Department of Art History. He is also a co-editor of The Art Institute of Chicago Field Guide to Photography and Media, published in 2023.

Pascal Beausse

Pascal Beausse is Head of the photography collection at the Centre national des arts plastiques (Paris). With Anna Labouze, Keimis Henni and Clément Postec, he curated the Regards du Grand Paris exhibition in 2022, presenting the works of 38 photographers who were laureates of the eponymous photographic commission launched in 2016, with the aim of building up, year after year, a corpus of images and authors’ views on the evolution of the Greater Paris.

Assia Labbas

Assia Labbas, a writer and artist from the Paris region, studied literature and journalism before contributing to publications for Bondy Blog, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair. She joined Kourtrajmé School in 2019, writing a short film screenplay and creating the Cacophonique installation exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2020. In 2021 she was a laureate of the national photographic commission Regards du grand Paris carried out by the Ateliers Médicis in collaboration with the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), aimed at documenting the contemporary urban upheavals at work in the French capital.
In her RER B-ANLIEUES series, she combines photography with testimonials from users of the RER B line, which connects the northern suburbs of Paris with the center of the capital, revealing unexpected perspectives on the landscape of the area and those living in, and the impact of media discourse on the people living in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Rebecca Topakian

2021 laureate of the national photographic commission Regards du Grand Paris, led by the Ateliers Médicis in collaboration with the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), Rebecca Topakian is a 2015 graduate of École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie of Arles. She has won several grants such as the Fondation des Artistes scholarship and the Cnap scholarship for documentary photography. She has also been awarded the Prix Fénéon and the ADIAF Emergence prize. Her book, Dame Gulizar And Other Love Stories, is due for publication in July 2024. Her work is currently featured in exhibitions such as La France sous leurs yeux at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris) and Along the crumbling wall, soon, the violet will bloom, a solo show at Borderline Art Space (Iaşi, Romania).
In her series (n=6-9), she explores the Greater Paris area through exotic birds, drawing parallels between the discourse on these birds sub- that have settled in Paris, and the discourse on other human migrations and the pejorative terminologies that surround them.

Sasha Phyars-Burgess

Sasha Phyars-Burgess, a Brooklyn native raised in Pennsylvania to Trinidadian parents, is a skilled photographer with a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Cornell University. She’s recognized as an emerging voice in contemporary photography, her work showcasing series blending documentary and fine art, exploring themes of diaspora, family, place, and social phenomena. She received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award and the Diane Dammeyer Award for her work in the neighborhood of Austin in Chicago.
In 2023, she undertook an artist residency in Paris as part of the Clichycago program at Ateliers Médicis, settingup a darkroom in a local community center to organize workshops. In both cities, she offers a vision of the long process of social and economic disinheritance experienced by marginalized urban communities, and captures their presence and grace.

Opening Passages : Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris  is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities. Since 2021, the Paris-Chicago dialogue has been flourishing under the umbrella of Clichycago: a platform for community-based cultural exchange and artistic experimentation, with the support of the Ateliers Médicis in Clichy-sous-Bois / Montfermeil (France) and Villa Albertine in Chicago.