Paris Photo is launching the Voices sector this year, inviting three curators to develop a proposal around contemporary themes to (re)emerge an artistic scene or medium practice. Voices can be discovered in the Southeast Gallery on the ground floor of the Grand Palais.
2024 Curators: Elena Navarro, Azu Nwagbogu, Sonia Voss.

Imperfect Paradises by Elena Navarro
The works gathered in Voices belong to artists from different generations who have represented the vibrant and complex scene of contemporary imagery in Latin America..
Whether through experimental series, reflections on the construction of identity and the body, explorations of political or sexual dissent, or investigations into the nature of photography, this diverse range of practices both exposes and challenges the social, political, and economic conditions of their countries of origin. With their atemporal nature, these works reconsider té concept of modernity as imposed by institutions.

“I will show how vibrant is the art scene in Latin América, from Mexico to Argenti- na, from historical photography to contemporary artists that are pushing the bounda- ries of the medium.”
Elena Navarro, Founder of FotoMexico, Independent Curator

• La Cometa, Bogota* Miguel Angel Rios »
• Memoria, Madrid* Yolanda Andrade » Paz Errázuriz » Maya Goded » Lourdes Grobet » Terry Holiday
• Taller de Mike, Mexico* Iñaki Bonillas » Rafael Soldi » Rodrigo Valenzuela »
• Vermelho, São Paulo* Claudia Andujar »

Liberated Bodies by Azu Nwagbogu
The concept of «Liberated Bodies” for Paris Photo Focus invites us to challenge and extricate the objectivity of archives— both those we inherit and those we create. This challenge is essential to discover new, subjective meanings that transcend traditional historical functional understanding and utility of photography as a medium of artistic inquiry.

By emancipating photography from its conventional roles, from its function in passed on histories, hegemony, power structures, surveillance, patriarchy and its role in propaganda in mass media, we can explore its potential to transcend and transmigrate into the realm of an understanding of the medium and its artistic merits—as a means of understanding deeper emotional truths. Truths that involve more profound evidence, one of having a life, a history, narratives, consciousness towards the possibility of a better understanding of a more humane world. Through recursive, revisiting and reinter- preting of archives, we open new pathways for creative expression and intellectual inquiry. This in turn fosters a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the definitive visual language that shapes our world.

“Photography is light and light banishes darkness. It illuminates and informs”
Azu Nwagbogu - Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, Independent Curator

• La Patinoire Royale Bach, Brussels Lebohang Kganye »
• Loft Art, Casablanca Joana Choumali »
• M97, Shanghai CAI Dongdong »

4 walls by Sonia Voss
Faced with the coercive power to which many Eastern and Northern European coun- tries were subjected between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, artists, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, developed diverse and powerful strategies. Armed with the sovereignty of their bodies, imagination, and often humor, they confronted res- trictions on freedom, censorship, and the normativity of images. Staging and composi- tions, interventions on the image, and the search for transcendence of the everyday were all ways to transfigure reality, mock it, or re-enchant it. The presented galleries propose to continue exploring a now historical period, but one whose many protago- nists remain to be discovered by the public. The connection of the exhibited works, imbued with a common spirit of resistance, allows for cross-readings and an assess- ment of their current relevance.

“In the coercive system of Soviet occupation, [...] the room was at times a laboratory, at times a personal theater, and at times an observatory.”
Sonia Voss - Independent Curator

• Alexandra de Viveiros, Paris Vladyslav Krasnoshchok » Sergiy Lebedynskyy » Evgeny Pavlov » Roman Pyatkovka »
• Anca Poterasu, Bucarest Aurora Király »
• Fotograf Contemporary, Prague* Libuše Jarcovjáková » Markéta Othová » Aleksandra Vajd »
• Kaunas Photography, Kaunas Violeta Bubelyte » Vitas Luckus » Romualdas Rakauskas » Rimaldas Viksraitis »
• Monopol, Warsaw* Zygmunt Rytka » Gabriele Stötzer »