Launched in 2015, the Le BAL / ADAGP Young Creation Award is now one of the most significant creation grants in Europe for photography. A true springboard for emerging creation, it offers its winners €20,000, a two-year mentorship to develop an already started photographic project, culminating in a publication and an exhibition at Le BAL.
The winners also receive a dedicated presentation on the ADAGP’s exhibition walls. Marie Quéau is the winner of the fifth edition of the Le BAL / ADAGP Young Creation Award for her project Fury. L’Œil de la Photographie met with the French artist to discuss the evolution of this series, which will be presented at Le BAL in Paris at the end of 2025.
Can you tell us a little about your background and your photographic approach?
I studied art history at the Sorbonne before joining the École Nationale Supérieure de Photographie in Arles. Since my graduation in 2009, I have pursued a personal approach while occasionally working on commissions for sports magazines such as L’Équipe or Entorse Magazine. This connection to sports is important because it was through this commissioned work that my relationship to the body in my practice developed.
This question of the body is at the heart of your series Fury.
For Fury, I focused on various sports disciplines, stunt performers, static apnea, but also motion capture and fury rooms. I wanted to highlight a philosophy of the body, something related to limits, from a fictional point of view rather than a biological study of sport. At that moment, I was looking for places where there was tension linked to weight, burden, and systems that played with the idea of relieving or adding weight to things. In my images, the bodies fall or are suspended, motionless…
Why this title, Fury?
I have always been fascinated by images I find in second-hand publications, often related to art history, biology, history, natural sciences, etc. I cut them out and make collages in a notebook where I create new worlds. This moment of research and observation constitutes the most important part of my work. When I start a project, I generally need a fictional base to cut out and return to reality. Fury came from the movie Alien 3 and a line mentioning a planet called Fury 161. At first, I imagined that the characters I was photographing lived on this prison planet, a place of punishment. I kept “Fury” because I liked the energy the title represented. The Furies are also vengeful goddesses in Roman mythology, often found on stelae. We thus return to this idea of death, which is very present in my work.
There is an unsettling, sometimes oppressive dimension in your images. Does it reflect your own state of mind about our world?
Since my graduation, I have developed an aesthetic linked to this question of unease, notably through black-and-white photography or a preference for very artificial colors. Since I use very tight framing, I often exclude the context to avoid specifically showing a place or era, and I think this closed circuit creates a form of anxiety, something suffocating. I think it’s interesting to approach the world through this lens and play with the tensions between aesthetics and subject matter.
In 2023, you received the Le BAL / ADAGP Young Creation Award for Fury. What does the award entail and how does the mentorship work?
The award includes a grant that provides double support, as it allows me not only to produce the project but also the economic freedom to fully dedicate myself to it. The mentorship includes discussions about the evolution of the series with Diane Dufour, co-director of Le BAL, and Julie Héraut, head of exhibitions and research. When I work, I tend to operate in a closed environment; I like to be in my own world and cut myself off from the rest. There are very few moments when I show the evolution of a project, at least in the professional sphere. This exchange allows me to have a stimulating back-and-forth of ideas. I confront myself with the views of two curators and the identity of a place focused on documentary photography and its hybrid forms.
Ultimately, this mentorship will lead to the presentation of an exhibition at Le BAL and the publication of a book.
This research phase will indeed take shape in a second phase, which we are currently starting. Things are beginning to clarify— the themes, the direction, the form… I will have the opportunity to discuss with Cyril Delhomme, the scenographer at Le BAL, with whom I will engage in a dialogue about the multiple possibilities this space offers and ways to modulate it. I will also have access to the archives of exhibitions presented at Le BAL up to today. It’s the first time I’ve had such support in preparing an exhibition. It’s also the first time I’ve worked on a series with the perspective of a book and an exhibition in mind. The way this conditions my work provides a very different approach.
Do you already know what form the exhibition will take?
This part of the work hasn’t been tackled yet, but I already have some ideas for the exhibition that will mix, in a way that is quite new to me, photography and video. I would especially like to juxtapose, in a back-and-forth dynamic, a video of static apnea and another of a fury room. I like the idea of polarization, extremes, and tension, which can also be felt in our contemporary world.
The ADAGP and its awards
Since 1953, the ADAGP has defended and supported artists worldwide — including nearly 21,000 photographers — in the recognition of their copyright. The French society is also very active in promoting arts, particularly photography. To support and assist artists at key moments in their professional careers, ADAGP has implemented several forms of support — in addition to the Le BAL / ADAGP Young Creation Award, notably the Monograph Collection Grant, which benefits 7 winners and helps contribute to the financing of their monographic publications; the Transverse Grant created with FreeLens to invite a photographer to conceive a work in collaboration with an artist from another visual arts discipline; the Fanzine Grant, which promotes experimentation inherent to this alternative medium and supports its creativity; the Ekphrasis Grant, in association with AICA France, which addresses the need for artists to have a reference text on their work; and the Photography & Sciences Award, which supports a photographer in completing their ongoing series. ADAGP also supports institutions dedicated to photography, such as the Gens d’images association, the Rencontres de la photographie in Arles, and the Photo Saint Germain festival.
More information
