A foretaste 2023

The 2023 edition promises to be exceptional, served up by young European talents with well-formed viewpoints. Aurélien Goubau and Ekaterina Balaban, reminded us of the gaping voids in the Soviet and later, Putin narratives, from the artificial suns promised in Murmansk to the gigantic collapses produced by the potash mines in the Urals. Andrea Gjestwang's Faroe Islands appears as a laboratory for the undermining of the age-old status of males: here fishermen, for a long time the undisputed masters of the place, are now faced with a massive exodus of young women towards other aspirations. Childhood, adolescence and the tormented entry into adulthood will be under the renewed attention of the Boutographies, with the intense presence of the people photographed by Tamara Eckhardt, Pauline Vanden Neste, Flavio Montrone and Fatoumata Diabaté. Finally, Daniel SzalaÏ, a promising young Hungarian artist, has developed an innovative photographic language, consistent with his aim: to expose breeding methods "optimised" by algorithms and digital surveillance tools. Fifteen other photographers will be presented in continuous projections on the main festival site. Each of their series alone will be worth the trip to the Pavillon Populaire.

The range of exhibitions on the main site of the festival will revolve around a Carte blanche offered to Camilla de Maffei, an artist discovered and multi-recompensed by the Boutographies in 2011, and who continues to produce remarkable work. Her "Delta" project, constructed over three years in the maze of the Danube delta, on the borders of Romania and Ukraine, is a landmark photographic and literary work. It will also be the subject of writing workshops in partnership with the associations Papier de Soi, Scribes and the Université Paul Valéry. This approach to her work will be relayed and exhibited by Studio 411, one of the venues used by the Hors les Murs of the Boutographies, which is now taking on an essential role in the event in terms of the quality of the spaces and the artistic proposals.

The 2023 edition also sees the inauguration of its first artist residency in partnership with the APF France Handicap association.

APF France Handicap is a bearer of humanist, militant and social values and a project of general interest, that of an inclusive and supportive society. Through this photographic partnership, APF France Handicap wishes to break away from traditional representations of people with disabilities. A wish shared by the Boutographies, and the photographer, Elsa Beaumont.