Conference: Long-Term Photography

Patrick Wack will introduce us to the process of long-term photography, in particular by highlighting his "Azov Horizons" series. Begun in 2019, "Azov Horizons" is a long-term photographic project exploring the territories around the Sea of Azov, a little-known but highly strategic northern extension of the Black Sea. With its annual chapters allowing the time of history to unfold in all its complexity, the "Azov Horizons" project takes the eye in search of both the roots and the visible traces of the conflict.

Patrick WACK:

Patrick Wack was born in Cannes in 1979 and grew up in the Paris suburbs. A former top-level sportsman and member of the French national team, he holds university degrees in economics and foreign languages, as well as from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP-EAP). His studies took him to the USA, Sweden and Germany. A self-taught photographer, he left the Berlin music industry in 2006 to move to China with the ambition of documenting its emergence. He was based in Shanghai for eleven years as a freelance photographer, alternating between commissions for the international press and institutional clients. He also devotes himself to long-term documentary projects tackling themes that are important for understanding our times. These include urban mutation and forced modernization in China, the Uyghur question, inter-ethnic tensions in the Balkans, and the aesthetic, social and political dimensions of the "pioneering front" of the New Silk Road. Based in Moscow from 2021 to 2023, he has been based in Paris since May 2023. His work has been published in Time magazine, The New York Times, National Geographic, The Sunday Times, M, Géo and other publications, and he has won the PDN Photo Annual, Bourse du talent, Prix Albert Kahn, KL Photo Awards, CNAP and the Grande Commande Photographique. He is a co-founder of the photographic cooperative Inland.