Explore Stories

Portrait(s) festival on show in Vichy

Nelli Palomäki, Justine Tjallinks, Denis Dailleux, Mark Seliger, Thomas Sauvin, Gilles Coulon, Mattia Zoppellaro, and Karma Milopp are all showing work in the Portrait(s) Photography Encounter – a festival devoted to pictures of people. Based in Vichy, France, the festival is now in its sixth year, and has been overseen this time by artistic director Fany Dupêchez.

Dailleux’s images were shot from 1987-1992, and show children based in the working class suburbs of Persan-Beaumont, Northern France; the images Sauvin is showing are also archival, but were taken by amateurs in China, and rescued by the French artist after the negatives were sent to the Beijing Silvermine to be melted down.

“Portrait(s) forges new links by reducing geographic or time boundaries,” writes Dupêchez. “The young people in a French suburb, as seen through Denis Dailleux’s delicate black-and-white prism, can rebound from the same 1980s that saw anonymous Chinese snap-shooters discover the practice of mass public photography and immortalise a period whose record collector Thomas Sauvin has saved.”

Isabella and Josefin, from the series Shared, 2016 © Nelli Palomäki / Courtesy galerie Les Filles du Calvaire et TAik Persons

Nelli Palomäki is showing images from Shared, the series of double-portraits of siblings previously featured on bjp-online; Justine Tjallinks is showing an exhibition titled The Beauty is Always Strange, showing the kind of off-beat portraits and subjects that made her one of BJP‘s Ones to Watch in 2017.

Italian photographer Mattia Zoppellaro is showing Appleby, a series of images shot in the UK horsefair of the same name, which attracts Scottish and Irish Travellers, and English and Welsh gypsies. Mark Seliger’s Thirty Years of Photography, meanwhile, is a retrospective of work by the photographer famous for his work for Conde Nast titles GQ, Vanity Fair, and Vogue.

Gilles Coulon is showing work made on a residency in Vichy, in which he photographed foreigners hosted in the city by local families, while Karma Milopp – a duo made up of Carla Talopp and Thomas Millett – is showcasing portraits of families in Vichy, made in a pop up mobile studio.

The Portrait(s) Photography Encounter is open until 09 September www.ville-vichy.fr/portraits 

From the series Persan-Beaumont © Denis Dailleux / Agence VU’
From the series Persan-Beaumont © Denis Dailleux / Agence VU’
From the series Persan-Beaumont © Denis Dailleux / Agence VU’
From the series Until death do us part © Thomas Sauvin / Beijing Silvermine
From the series Quanshen © Thomas Sauvin / Beijing Silvermine
Kasper and Olivia, from the series Shared, 2016 © Nelli Palomäki / Courtesy galerie Les Filles du Calvaire et TAik Persons
Aino and Saima, from the series Shared, 2016 © Nelli Palomäki / Courtesy galerie Les Filles du Calvaire et TAik Persons
From the series Nude (Strength), 2014 © Justine Tjallinks
Untitled, from the series Appleby, 2013 © Mattia Zoppellaro / Constrato
Catherine Deneuve and Pharrell Williams, Paris, 2005
© Mark Seliger / Courtesy A. galerie
Saala Kondo, Japanese student, Vichy, France, 03 February 2018. From the series Entrevues, 2018
© Gilles Coulon / Tendance Floue
From the series Portraits de familles © Karma Milopp
Diane Smyth

Diane Smyth is the editor of BJP, returning for a second stint on staff in 2023, after 15 years on the team until 2019. She also edits the Photoworks Annual, and has written for The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Aperture, FOAM, and Apollo, plus catalogues and monographs. Diane lectures in photography history and theory at the London College of Communications, and has curated exhibitions for The Photographers Gallery and Lianzhou Foto Festival. Follow her on instagram @dismy