Christophe Agou

Jean & Babette, France

Christophe Agou (b.1969, France) works in extended series, both in color and black and white.  In 2006 he was chosen as a finalist for both the W. Eugene Smith Award and le Prix de la Photographie de l’Académie des Beaux Arts de Paris in 2008. He received a ‘Mention Spéciale‘ for Le Prix Kodak de la Critique Photographique in 2009. His work has been widely published and exhibited internationally including at the Moma, Le Jeu de Paume, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The National Museum of American History, Les Rencontres D’Arles and The Noorderlicht Fotofestival. His new book, Face au Silence won the 2010 European Publishers Award for Photography will consist of approximately 75 color photographs along with a fiction piece written by acclaimed author John Berger. It will be released this winter.

About the Photograph:

“Emotions have always been the motivating forces throughout my life and my creative process. In the winter of 2002, I began documenting the lives of French family farmers living and working in the Forez region. I have always had a deep affection for this land in which I was born and lived until age 16. I traveled to the lesser-known parts of this bucolic land, where I felt inspired by the silence I found and moved by the authenticity and  charisma of the people I encountered. With time and through a gradual process of building trust and friendship, they accepted my curious eye and allowed me to photograph and film their daily existence. I wanted to go beyond  documenting their labor-intensive lives and present a deeper, more intimate portrait of their nature. This large body of work is to me a meditation on life and death and the silence and solitude that seem ever-present in our lives.”