Winner Bourse du Talent 2026 : Antoine Lecharny

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Since 2023, I have been exploring the post-war years, their ideological and architectural legacies, and the contemporary resurgence of hatred and political violence across Europe. Given its unique history as a model socialist city built from the ground up in East Germany in 1950, I chose to focus my attention on Eisenhüttenstadt, originally named Stalinstadt.
At the time of its creation, Eisenhüttenstadt was conceived by the East German communist regime as a tangible symbol of a break with the Nazi past and the construction of an antifascist and socialist future. The city’s defining elements—statues, mosaics, human-scaled housing blocks, green spaces, stained-glass windows, and murals—were intended to embody this rupture visually. They were also meant to guarantee a high quality of life and foster an egalitarian social fabric. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, the city experienced severe deindustrialization, large-scale population decline, and, more recently, a political shift toward the far right.
Through Feu Stalinstadt (Late Stalinstadt), I seek to convey a fragmented vision of Eisenhüttenstadt, reflecting the fragmentation of its urban plan, its collective memory, and its social fabric. The project was conceived in response to the possibility of the far right returning to power in many European countries. As a reaction to this prospect, I aim to offer a portrait of a city that has become symptomatic of these broader political transformations.
Feu Stalinstadt takes the form of a constellation of images that are unified by their visual treatment yet heterogeneous in their subjects. Each fragment bears witness to a particular dimension of the city and to an openly subjective perspective. Together, they reveal the entanglement of eras and ideologies, and the discontinuities of history.

Antoine Lecharny is a photographer, painter, and sculptor born in 1995.
His work, exhibited and awarded in France and internationally—including the Jury Prize at the Planches Contact Festival, the Audience Award at Boutographies, and the Paris Match Prize—is held in several public and private collections, among them that of Marin Karmitz. Recipient of the Audi Talents Award alongside artist Henri Frachon, he presented the sculptural project Disegno Astratto at the Palais de Tokyo in 2021, which subsequently led to a publication by Tonini Editore. In 2023, Galerie Sit Down, which represents him, hosted his first solo photographic exhibition in Paris, entitled Côté fenêtre (Window Side).
In 2025, he received the Gomma Grant B&W Award for his long-term project dedicated to the memory of the mass shootings of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States during the Second World War. This project, entitled Underground (Sous terre), was published as a book in 2025 by Éditions d’une rive à l’autre.
That same year, Antoine Lecharny was a finalist for the Le BAL / ADAGP Prize with his project Feu Stalinstadt and was selected as one of three artists supported by Sarah Moon as part of the Grand Prix of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.