Jeanne Mercier's Curator Profile

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Jeanne Mercier

Independent curator

Marseille, France

5 Posts

19 Followers

5 Following

Biography

Curator, critic and photo editor since 2005 based between Europe and Africa. In 2006, I co-founded Afrique In Visu, Afrique in visu, an online platform dedicated to photographers in Africa, which I have since managed. I was trained in art history and photography at the Sorbonne in Paris. And I did a thesis on the Bamako Biennale in 2005 at the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociale) under the supervision of André Gunthert.  As an independent curator and critic, I am interested in works that convey counter-narratives, that create new imaginaries or new myths freed from our imposed patterns, dominant cultures and iconographies. Works or images that intertwine History, personal genealogies, family traditions, resistance to colonization and new forms of artistic practices around the image in the broadest sense, photo, video, installation. My recent exhibition projects gave me the opportunity to collaborate with many renowned artists and institutions, the ICI (Institute of Islamic Cultures) in Paris, Fotofestiwal in Lodz, Kerkennah Festival in Tunisia, the Zinsou Foundation in Benin, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Morocco with the exhibition acclaimed "Africa is no island". In 2017, I published the book "The profession of photographer in Africa, 10 years of Afrique in visu" (published by Clémentine de la Féronnière). Currently, I am working on several exhibition projects in Europe and Africa and collaborate with different art magazines and books.  Nominator of the Pictet Prize, Kyoto prize, First Book Award, A New Gaze - Vontobel price for contemporary photography. And Member of the Jury of the Cap Prize for Contemporary African Photography.

Elsewhere: 

Publication

LE METIER DE PHOTOGRAPHE EN AFRIQUE - 10 ANS AFRIQUE IN VISU

Created in 2006 in Mali by Jeanne Mercier and Baptiste de Ville d’Avray, Afrique in visu is a participative platform for exchanges on the profession of photographer in Africa. Supported by a hundred or so regular contributors (photographers, journalists and critics), it is a living archive and creative laboratory on the practice of photography in Africa. It puts professionals on the continent in contact, regardless of their nationality, origin or affiliation, and distributes contemporary creation to enable the exchange of photographic know-how. It does not categorise nor claim to be a history of “African” photography. It has a single leitmotiv, a territory that transcends both terrestrial and maritime borders: AFRICA. Afrique in Visu is a plethora of stories of a continent revealed through photographs that attempt to take the place of all the images and stereotypes associated with it. Since 2006 Afrique in Visu has published more than 1000 articles, it has some 100 contributors around the world, has mounted several exhibitions in Europe and Africa, organised workshops to teach photography, and offered support for 15 photographic projects. Its internet site receives on average 500 visitors each day. To celebrate the association’s tenth anniversary, this book has published the site’s most admired interviews and critiques. These are organised around three themes introduced by essays written by individuals working in the world of photography. Few books deal with photography in Africa, which is exactly what this one is about. It has called on the views of a panel of specialists, historians, curators and journalists, and is republishing some of the content of an internet site that has had a pioneering influence on the spread of photography in Africa.

Exhibition Archive

Croyances : Faire et défaire l’invisible

Mar 13th 2020 - Dec 27th 2020

Institut des Cultures d'Islam

Exhibition Archive

Mythologies of resistance. A new geography of memory in the Caribbean

Jun 13th 2019 - Jun 30th 2019

Lodz

Exhibition Archive

Africa is no island

Feb 21st 2018 - Mar 24th 2019

MACAAL