Photography Award The 68th Edition of Prix Nadar Gens d’Images

The Nadar Gens d’images Prize is awarded to SIEMPRE QUE by Celine Croze, published by Lamaindonne. 

“Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos”
“As long as we are alive we will see each other” This was the last sentence that Vair said to me. We were on the azotea (roof) of Block 11, the mist enveloped Caracas, the crazy rumor of the city sounded like a funeral song. It was a bullet in my heart. The awareness of one’s own end was both terrible and sublime. Everything was said. The rush of life, the fascination for death, the collapse of the country. The extreme violence and absurdity of the situation gave the impression that life was just a game. I remembered two days earlier the gallina (arena for cockfighting). The smell of blood mixed with rum and sweat, the screams of rage, the excitement of each man. An impalpable trance intoxicated the arena. As if we were all crazy. As if blood, death and power made us more alive. The chaotic energy of the city echoed in every fight like a dance that unfolded, stayed and cried helplessly. A month later, Vair was shot. He was 27 years old. My wanderings in Latin America were crossed by other striking encounters. Like these fighting roosters, I saw beings dancing and clinging to the disorder. Each time I found the same insolent sensuality, like a furious provocation, like a teenager’s cry amused by the danger, condemned and free.

Céline Croze

Celine Croze is a visual artist born in Morocco and based in Paris, with a background in cinema.
She is represented by the Sit Down Gallery. Sensitive to the cracks in our society, Celine uses cinematographic codes to transgress the world around her, to interfere in the fault of those she watches. Her work has been presented at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie de Fès, the Bill board Festival in Casablanca and Istanbul, the Marrakech and Paraguay Biennials, the Kassel Festival, the Tbilisi Festival in Georgia as well as at the Villa Perochon in Niort. In 2019, she was awarded the Prix Révélation of the Face à la mer festival and the Map Festival with her series “SQEVNV”.
In 2020, she is the winner of the Mentor prize for her future project “Mala Madre”.
In 2021, she is one of the finalists of the HSBC prize with “SQEVNV”.
Selected for the Tremplin jeunes talents of the festival Planches Contact of Deauville, her series ” Silence insolent ” wins the public prize 2021. In 2022, her book SIEMPRE QUE is published by Lamaindonne, and her series SQEVNV is currently exhibited at the Festival du regard in Cergy, and at the Mudima Foundation in Milan. Celine Croze will be presented at Paris Photo by the gallery Sit Down with her series “Silence insolent”.

Siempre Que by Celine Croze
Design and editorial direction: David Fourré / lamaindonne Hardcover – Swiss binding – 18 x 24 cm
hot stamping
50 four-color photographs
120 pages – French
Publication date : July 2022
35 Euros