Paris Photo continues its commitment to women in photography with Elles x Paris Photo, a program initiated in 2019 in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture and supported by Women In Motion, a Kering program that shines a light on the talent of women artists and their contribution to the history of photography. Selected artists will benefit from an exhibition on the website, a dedicated space and resource continuously updated with interviews, articles and statistical data on the representation of women photographers.

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Gender equality is a major issue for the photography sector as for society as a whole. On the occasion of the 5th  edition of Elles x Paris Photo, the French Ministry of Culture reaffirms its commitment to women in photography as part of its policy to promote equality. This initiative, developed in close collaboration with Paris Photo since 2018, encourages galleries participating in the fair to promote the work of the women artists they represent, both to collectors and art institutions. The program has produced encouraging results, bringing the number of women photographers exhibiting at the fair to nearly one-third in 2022, up from only 20% five years ago.
For this new edition, Federica Chiocchetti, director of the Musée des Beaux Arts du Locle in Switzerland and curator specializing in photography and literature, has taken on the task of curating this year’s fair path. She presents a selection of 77 photographic works chosen from not only the gallery booths, but the publishers as well. She invites visitors to join her in a poetic and socially engaged stroll through the fair, playing on the number 77, a reference to women’s legs in the tradition of the Italian lottery, while paying homage to the year 1977, a key date in the feminist movement in Italy.
This new tour demonstrates a renewed commitment to a movement that dispels prejudices and reveals the diversity and richness of the many images to be rediscovered. Let’s hope that this initiative, a true ode to women photographers, will continue its vocation and increase their presence in private and public collections for years to come, contributing to their recognition in France and abroad.

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Curator Federica Chiocchetti

To survive the contemporary art jungle, I try to imbue my curatorial practice with shamanic and liberating strategies. Oftentimes literature is the place where my associations of ideas begin to shape the scaffolding of a project. For this edition of Elles x Paris Photo, I landed on the territory of the OuLiPo, the legendary Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, whose members, a mixture of writers and mathematicians, compose works using constrained writing techniques as a means of triggering inspiration.
Which constraints could I set for myself in developing this fair itinerary of women photo-artists, within the framework of the program initiated by the French Ministry of Culture, and supported by Kering / Women In Motion. Rather than themes, I felt that I needed instead a symbolic number of artists. Also, as a rule, I resolved to only select artists who had not been featured in the previous editions of Elles X Paris Photo. Finally, I decided to extend the selection to the book sector, because it seems that for women, it is easier to be published than represented by a gallery, which shows that there is still work to do in the photography market. The title Women In Motion reminded me of the importance of legs, as they enable movement through walking. La Tombola, an old Neapolitan board game, which follows the tradition of La Smorfia (grimace), dreams are analyzed and converted into numbers used in a bingo game.
What’s in a number? Lurking behind a seemingly innocent number in a fun popular game, we find a typical misogynic relic of patriarchal society: the demonized woman, reminiscent of the witch-hunts compellingly narrated by philosopher Silvia Federici. There was my symbolic number ready for rehab. Moreover, 1977 is a very important year for the feminist movement in my home country Italy, when women first became independent activists fighting against sexism within the left-wing organizations to which the belonged.
I hope, dear visitors, that you will enjoy navigating the fair to discover the 77 artists presented here in a purely visual sequence. If possible, keep a vigilant eye, and be suspicious of numbers, words and above all images…
See you next time in a post-quota society!

Federica Chiocchetti, curator

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About

Federica Chiocchetti is a writer, curator, editor, and recently appointed director of the Musée du Locle in Switzerland. Through her platform Photocaptionist she collaborates with international museums (Jeu de Paume, V&A, Kunsthalle Budapest), private collections (David Solo, Archive of Modern Conflict) festivals and fairs (Jaipur Photo, T3 Tokyo Photo Festival, Paris Photo), publishers (Spector Books, Aperture, Foam), bookstores (La Fabrica, Shakespeare and Company) and universities (University of Oxford, ECAL), among others. She holds a PhD in ‘Photo-Texts’, from London’s University of Westminster, which she is transforming into a touring exhibition, book and educational project, the Word and Image Workshop. She has won a number of residencies (Fondation Michalski, Cité internationale des arts), awards (Kraszna-Krausz Best Photography Book, Vienna Photo Book Dummy) and in 2016 she was included among the ‘16 female curators shaking things up’ by Artnet. Her research on women in photography was presented in multiple forms by L’Uomo Vogue, Fotomuseum Winterthur, 10x10 Photobooks, London Art Fair and The Photographers’ Gallery.

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Paris Photo 2022

Paris Photo celebrates its 25th edition this year at the Grand Palais Éphémère and remains a defining force in the field of photography, both in Paris and worldwide.
By inviting galleries and publishers from all horizons to show photography of yesterday and today, Paris Photo participates in the ongoing evolution of this medium in the capital and offers visitors a remarkable overview of its history.
Documenting these developments, showcasing young talent and provoking debate: this is also the ambition behind the exhibitions and conversations program that accompanies this vibrant fair. The exhibition Image 3.0 presented this season takes a forward-looking look at new languages in photography, particularly as it makes increasing use of new modeling, digitalization and printing technologies. Such experiments are also at the heart of the approach of the Grand Palais Immersif extension, which was recently inaugurated at the Opéra Bastille; the images in the Venice Revealed exhibition were created using modeling techniques based on the recomposition of hundreds of photographs.

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See the complete program: Paris Photo 10-13 November 2022 Grand Palais Éphémère