Bourse du Talent 2026 : Chloé Nicosia

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This series explores the traces of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation during the 2000s through a combination of analogue photographs and archival banknotes issued during that period.

In 2015, I travelled to Zimbabwe, where my father was working. During a road trip, I noticed large, empty or decaying billboards scattered across the landscape and began photographing them. These images became the starting point for a reflection on economic collapse and the disappearance of representations from public space.

While researching the country’s recent history, I discovered that Zimbabwe experienced one of the most severe economic crises of the contemporary era under the regime of Robert Mugabe. In the early 2000s, hyperinflation reached its peak: banknotes bearing absurd denominations were printed, some even carrying expiration dates.
The title of the series, One Hundred Trillion Dollars, refers to the highest-denomination banknote ever issued in Zimbabwe. At the time, the note was worth only around forty US cents.

Through the history of Zimbabwe, the series resonates with broader contemporary concerns.

Today, countries such as Venezuela, Lebanon, Sudan, and Argentina continue to face severe inflationary crises, revealing the fragility of economic and monetary systems within a global capitalist framework. Through the juxtaposition of photographs and monetary archives, the project reflects on the material traces left by economic instability and the ways in which its effects persist within landscapes and collective memory.

Photographer and visual artist.
After completing a Master’s degree in Political Science at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Chloé Nicosia first worked as a correspondent for the regional daily press. Following a period at Agence France-Presse, she established herself in 2007 as a freelance photographer, developing a visual aesthetic closely connected to the world of music.
In 2019, she became an image contributor to Le Chantier des Francofolies de La Rochelle, a programme dedicated to supporting emerging musical artists.
Her work has been published in numerous media outlets, including Libération, Grazia, Modzik, Le Bonbon, Elle, Mixte, and A Nous Paris. Alongside her photographic practice, she has developed a multidisciplinary artistic approach that combines image-making with material-based work, including neon installations, collage, and sculpture. She further pursued this line of research through a degree in Fine Arts at the Sorbonne. Since 2010, she has also taught at a photography school in the Greater Paris area.
Her work has been exhibited in galleries in France and abroad, notably in Belgium and Mexico, and she has twice participated in Les Nuits Photographiques de Pierrevert.
In 2022, during a residency at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, she developed the book dummy One Hundred Trillion Dollars, a project exploring hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. In 2024, the project was selected by eight photography festivals around the world.
In 2025, she was awarded the prize of the Biennale des Rencontres Photographiques du 10e in Paris.