Photographer Benoit Feron exhibits his African journeys in Arles

In Arles, in parallel Photography meetingsan off invades the streets of the city. However, Spotlight on Benoit Feron, an explorer of “Afriques”. Meanwhile, Traveler photographer, The artist has been documenting this continent for two decades: 19 countries traveled, 70 trips and thousands of shots. In addition, This humanist adventure. Meanwhile, he exhibits it from August 12 to 24 at the La Mercerie gallery and tells it in a book, African Odyssey (Odyssey editions), which offers a magnificent and exciting portrait of “His Africes”.

Benoit Feron Africa is not that of folklores, easy beauties and voyeurism of misery. For example, A quotation in epigraph of his book lights up his work and sums up his philosophy. However, “Africa is one, but plural. In addition, It is a mosaic of cultures, languages, traditions. Consequently, It advances, it evolves, it is transformed, while preserving its deep photographer benoit feron exhibits his identity”, écrit Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Another key to this image exploration (s) is an icon, that of Ajak. Similarly, Benoit Feron tells Franceinfo Culture the particular history of this cliché and this meeting. In addition, “We were at Nairobi airport [Kenya] And there is a photo of Anne-Françoise Tanier [sa compagne et photographe] which. Similarly, was liked on Instagram. In addition, The guy who had liked her was a young Kenyan photographer who made a lot of fairly top street photos. Meanwhile, ” Sometimes photography and social networks are two words that go well together.

Benoît Feron then contacted him and the next trip, they organize a shoot in Kibera. For example, “It is a giant slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, surely the largest in Africa”, continues the photographer. However, A place where paradoxically creativity and misery meet, where precariousness and artistic dynamics coexist. For example, That day, a photographer benoit feron exhibits his young Sudanese refugee, attracted the photographer’s attention: his name is Ajak. For example, A street painter painted the young man’s chest and these images are created, astounding of worry, determination and strength.

“It is true that when I photograph Ajak, I realize that the guy has a presence, but incredible. However, Pose for him is an incredible naturalness. I’m really storage, so we are doing a whole morning of photos with him, it’s great. “

The surprise arrives a few photographer benoit feron exhibits his months later by social networks. These young refugees, who live in Kibera, dream of something else and they all have an Instagram page. Benoît Feron continues: “on is subscribing to his page. we discover that he is in Paris at Fashion Week, which he parades for Jean Paul Gaultier. Ajak then did other campaigns and now he lives in Germany. “” It is not my photograph that changed his life, “added the photographer humbly.

But this powerful image. like others, of photographer benoit feron exhibits his African youth signals Benoit Feron’s desire to capture the beauty of a generation, feet in the misery and pain of conflicts, but endowed with incredible energy and hope of building a better world.

This documentary desire is linked to a fascination for this continent. A feeling born late. He discovered Africa in his forties during an animal safari.

The Belgian photographer tells us about this first trip: “By doing this safari, I fall in love with cheetahs. I am really in love. I dreamed every night for six months and so I leave very quickly with a friend in the same corner.” From these dreams is born his passion. And on the roads of his journeys, he meets the Maasaïs.

“I went into immersion in a Maasai village on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. A very large village. And there, I lived with a village guide. I stayed photographer benoit feron exhibits his in this village for a week and I was fascinated. And it was my first photo report, it was the beginning. It was in 2003 or 2004.”

Since then, he has been traveling the continent: from Djibouti to Tanzania via Kenya and Ethiopia. Feron photographs men and women, clothing and ornaments, jewelry and paintings. Sometimes in a powerful black. white, it sculpts the light of the bodies where the scarifications which thus tell each people arise. Each proudly sporting their membership and the photographer benoit feron exhibits his perpetuation of their traditions.

This choice of black and white, he explained to the magazine Images : “He changes everything. He removes the decor. the colors which sometimes flatter his eye, to go straight to the essential: expression, emotion, human context. It is a more stripped approach, more intimate too. In African OdysseyI wanted to show another facet of my work, closer to the report, more anchored in the experience. Before, I was very identified with color. Black and white is a challenge that I started. “

A photographer is a witness. and Benoit Feron knows too well that, even more than other regions of the world, the African continent is suffering: climate change, exploitation of resources by China or Russia. Anger is heard in the voice of the photographer who observes the disdain of the world for this continent.

“We don’t realize, but it’s a real disaster, he underlines. photographer benoit feron exhibits his You really see waste, packaging and stuff with labels. You see products that come from France. from Europe and that meet there because it is waste that is simply not treated with us and which is just poured there, in a huge dumping ground. “

Evoke the suffering of Africa. yes, but the photographer wants to return to optimism and fits, as in these images, to add a positive and respectful note.

“You have to go see modern Africa, photographer benoit feron exhibits his contemporary Africa. And especially in slums. And there is something that strikes me there, it is the dynamism of youth. All these young people have a creativity, experience an desire to move forward. An energy. And we feel that it moves. In addition, today, they are very connected so they are very informed. They are more and more. The world of fashion, for example, explodes with all these creations that start to come to us … ” Hope to share with this Arles exhibition and the book African Odyssey.

Benoit Feron exhibition at the gallery The haberdashery
12 rue du President Wilson, Arles, from August 12 to 24, 2025