Bourse du Talent 2026 : Lucie Sassiat

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I grew up in a peaceful and loving childhood, marked by happy memories.

Yet from an early age, a diffuse unease settled in: recurring nightmares, the sensation of feeling unclean in my own skin, stomach aches with no apparent cause. I could not find the words to describe what was happening to me. My body, however, knew. It retained the memory of places, smells, and gestures.

“If we question photography, it is because it constitutes the tangible trace of a lived experience.”
— Christine Ulivucci

It was through this material of family photographic archives that I began an investigation into my own history. I collect clues as one might gather evidence from a crime without a body. Certain flashes return repeatedly: the armchair, the hands, the cologne, the cigarette. The objects that formed the backdrop of those moments, now photographed in adulthood, have become silent pieces of evidence. The envelope bearing my address marks the lifting of amnesia and my arrival in Paris.

By capturing these details, I seek to convey the dissociation and strangeness of reality, without turning the perpetrator into a monster, but rather by revealing his ordinariness and the lasting consequences of his actions. The work questions the legitimacy of pain hidden behind seemingly ordinary lives.

This series aims to break the silence, make the unspeakable visible, and open a space of recognition for all forms of concealed suffering. Photography becomes an act of resilience and testimony, as well as a universal tool for expression and memory.

Born in 1986, Lucie Sassiat grew up along the cliffs of Brittany, where her way of seeing was shaped by an attentiveness to light, landscapes, and the traces they bear.
At the intersection of fashion photography and documentary practice, her work explores contemporary representations of femininity through female figures, portrayed alone or in groups. Infused with mythological references, it questions notions of memory, transmission, and presence.
Her visual language is both refined and embodied, relying on natural light and a close attention to bodies, gestures, and silences.
Her work has been exhibited at Arles Voies Off (2019) and the Objectif Femmes festival (2021). She regularly collaborates with the press and with actors in the fashion industry.
Alongside this, she develops personal narrative-driven projects in which the figure of the muse becomes an active subject and a space for contemporary projection.
Since 2023, she has been the editor-in-chief of Les Cahiers de la Photographie.