For the first time at Paris Photo, this year Leica is exhibiting the two winners of the prestigious Oskar Barnack prize, Scarlett Coten and Clémentine Schneidermann, respectively for “Mectoub” and “The unbearable, the sadness and the rest”.
Scarlett Coten is an independent photographer working on long term projects mainly in the Arab world. After studying at l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles, she travelled to Egypt, where she made her first major series. For “Still Alive”, she accompanied Bedouins in the Sinai Desert for several months. Since 2012, she has been working on the “Mectoub” project, her long-term work that she started in 2012 in North Africa and in the Middle East. It is a series of portraits that questions the masculine identity of a generation of emancipated men and gives a view of the ruptures between social conformity and personal aspirations. Scarlett Coten started to work in the context of the Arab Spring on different aspects of an evolving masculine society.
Clémentine Schneidermann, discovered photography in the streets of Paris. She studied photography from 2009 to 2012 at Centre d’enseignement professionnel of Vevey in Switzerland. She continued with her Masters of Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales in Newport from 2012 to 2014. There she started the series that she submitted to the 2016 Leica Oskar Barnack Award. She made a piece on children residing in social housing located in the heart of the ancient mining region of Wales. Between social documentary and performance, Clémentine Schneidermann offers the tenderness and poetry of her eye.
Scarlett Coten, Mectoub
Clémentine Schneidermann, The unbearable, the sadness and the rest
At Paris Photo
From November 10 to 13, 2016
Grand Palais
Paris, France
