Winner Bourse du Talent 2025 : Sasha Mongin

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In a deeply personal series, photographer Sasha Mongin invites us into the intimate folds of her family history, which is closely intertwined with the contaminated blood scandal.

“My father contracted HIV during a blood transfusion in 1982, following heart surgery. AIDS allowed a rare virus to attack his brain, significantly impairing his motor skills and speech. I was seven years old at the time, and doctors gave him only a few months to live. But he proved them wrong—he’s still with us today.”

The images convey the perspective of a child who lived for years with the certainty that her father was going to die. Through her photographs, Sasha Mongin evokes her most vivid and haunting memories.

“I remember denying my father’s illness, taking refuge in the fantasy that he was secretly going out at night. I remember my mother’s loneliness as friends and family gradually drifted away. I remember the strange relief of learning my father had AIDS and not a brain tumor, as I had been told until I was twelve. Death has always been a familiar presence in my life and in my parents’—they laugh about it, cry over it, and await it.”

While the subject is treated at times metaphorically and at others with stark clarity, all of the images are suffused with Sasha Mongin’s dreamlike and fantastical visual world.

Born in the United States in 1989 and a graduate of Gobelins School in 2017, Sasha Mongin lives and works in Paris.

In 2023, she exhibited two series exploring masculinity – Écrins and Mythes, Chapter I – at Galerie M. The following year, in 2024, she embarked on two distinct projects. The first, titled Backstages, offers a behind-the-scenes look at Fashion Week and was selected as a finalist for the 2024 Picto Fashion Photography Prize. This work was exhibited at Galerie M in September 2024 during Paris Fashion Week. The second project, The Dying Man Who Would Not Die, delves into the theme of mourning and earned Sasha Mongin the Premi Fotografia Femenina from Incadaqués x Fisheye. This photographic series was showcased at the InCadaqués International Photography Festival in September 2024 and will be exhibited again in 2025 during the opening week of the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, supported by the UPP.

Alongside her personal projects, she works on commissioned assignments (for Air France Magazine, Persée Paris, among others), always striving to infuse her images with a touch of magic. In 2024, Sasha’s work caught the attention of Christine and the Queens, who entrusted her with directing the music video for the song Rentrer chez moi. In 2025, she continues her deeply personal series The Dying Man Who Would Not Die, directs a second dreamlike music video for the artist Joye, and begins a fantastical new series set around Lake Soings.

Website : https://sashamongin.com/