Photography contest winners announced

The winners of the photography contest at the Hyères Festival include Motoki Nakatani, Xueling Chen, Valeria Sarto, and Julien Rahmani. Their works explore themes such as the preservation and transformation of memory through photography.

A windmill of black beans

One image features a windmill for children, with black beans seemingly escaping from its blades and dispersing across the background. Some beans appear to be individually placed around the object, creating a graphic composition that appears almost digital but retains visible traces of its production.

Motoki Nakatani’s artistic process

Motoki Nakatani, a Japanese photographer who won the Grand Prix 7L of photography supported by the House of Chanel, composes images from domestic objects that evoke Photoshop manipulations, though each element is made by hand. Cuts, assemblies, and irregularities are not considered imperfections but rather integral to the image's composition.

Nakatani and artificial intelligence

Nakatani's work gains particular resonance in the context of artificial intelligence, which allows images to be generated in seconds. As a retoucher, he closely follows the evolution of AI tools, noting that many of his colleagues explore AI-generated imagery.

Personal inspiration for Nakatani

However, he does not oppose AI outright, emphasizing that his concern is with immediacy rather than the technology itself. He views AI as a tool and is more interested in questioning the place of the creative process and the gestures that compose it. His focus on domestic objects also stems from a personal experience, as becoming a father three years ago led him to distance himself from documentary photography and instead focus on more intimate compositions made from familiar things.

Xueling Chen’s exploration of adulthood

Xueling Chen, winner of the new Fashion Photography Prize by Pull&Bear, is interested in the passage to adulthood and how traditions shape representations of femininity. For her project, Leaving the Garden, she spent the summer with her two nieces, aged 13 and 15 years.

Valeria Sarto’s family legacy

Valeria Sarto, awarded the American Vintage Photography Prize for The Barons, imagines a fictional family based on photographs discovered in her grandmother's house. She was inspired by looking at old photos in her grandmother's house and how she could learn so much about the women in her life through these photos before knowing them.

Recreating family photographs

By printing and photographing these images again in her grandmother's apartment, she questions what family photographs transmit and explores access to an untold story.

Julien Rahmani’s street cricket project

Julien Rahmani, who did not attend any photography training or art school, won the public prize for Soft Ball, a project dedicated to street cricket practiced in Saudi Arabia by immigrant workers. Every Wednesday morning, men gather around this sport, creating a space for sociability and a regular meeting within a diasporic community.

Rahmani’s focus on subcultures

The project extends Rahmani's broader attention to alternative cultures, including skateboarding, drifting, rap, and electronic music. He explains that his work seeks to stimulate exchanges, open discussions on subjects, and give visibility to questions, showing that the world is not binary but filled with nuances and grays.

Themes of the awarded projects

The projects awarded at the Hyères Festival focus on themes such as the time needed to create an image, family legacies, and subcultures, highlighting what is built at the margins of dominant representations.