For more than 60 years, Alain Keler has been exploring the world and its turmoil. His photographs examine the links between history and personal destinies, revealing the traces that the chaos of the present times leaves on people’s faces.

From Lebanon to Chechnya, from Iran to El Salvador, this tireless witness to conflicts and revolutions focuses on the fate of the excluded, the uprooted, and the forgotten. His strikingly poetic black-and-white images span decades, capturing both major upheavals and everyday life.

This retrospective unveils the essence of his work for the first time: from his early images to major reports for Sygma and Gamma, from long-term series on minorities in the former Communist bloc or on discrimination against the Roma to family stories. Winner of the World Press Photo in 1986 and the Eugene Smith Prize in 1997, Keler tirelessly explores the echoes between collective memory and personal stories.

Contact sheets and travel journals enrich the journey of a humanist, socially conscious photographer who documents everything and archives everything so that nothing gets erased.

This exhibition is co-produced by Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie and Hôtel Fontfreyde – Centre photographique, with support from Fondation Antoine de Galbert.

Curation: Olivier Monge

Publication: Alain Keler, Éditions Delpire, 2026.