Retrospective exhibition

Discover the work of photographer Sabine Jaccard at her first retrospective: the artist presents three key series in her style, "Photos chosen as a tribute to Voltaire" (2020), "Humanity beyond color" (2022) and "French from here and elsewhere" (2024).

With each exhibition, Sabine Jaccard likes to recall the greek etymology of " to photograph ": to write with light. For her, photography is a form of writing that highlights the humanity of people, which she sees beyond colour.

Sabine Jaccard's photographic bias is to offer photos in black and white argentic (and not in digital colour as is the case today); then she likes to highlight the architecture of Paris.

The Franco-Swiss artist has chosen around fifty images from these three series to make up the first retrospective devoted to her work. Since 2017, she has been working exclusively on " anti-racist projects ", combining portraits and interviews based on meticulous documentation. She likes to put herself in the shoes of a photojournalist to produce these series. The first of these, "Humanity Beyond Colour", was commissioned by the dean of the American Cathedral in Paris, three weeks after the murder of George Floyd.

It was during a family trip throughout the Middle East that Sabine Jaccard discovered the pleasure of photography : she was 9 years old. Photography never left her.

Passionate about French and English literature, she studied at Oxford and London Universities , then at the Sorbonne. Shakespeare accompanied her on her academic and photographic journey. Her meeting with Henri Cartier-Bresson in 2000 confirmed her vocation , and from 2002 onwards she had one exhibition after another.

Her aim: to create tableaux vivants that celebrate themes present in Shakespeare 's work: the oppositions between reality and illusion, between light and shadow, between body and mind. The passers-by they meet in Paris, Washington, New York, Rome or Geneva are transformed, under her lens, into a thousand luminous lights. There are no poses, just the photographer's eye freezing them!

Sabine Jaccard is particularly fond of street photography, always in black and white film. She chooses backlighting to demonstrate her desire to get close, to touch, to understand what drives human beings.

Between two trips, she lives in Paris. She takes great pleasure in making her own prints, while working with the professional laboratory Central Dupon for her exhibitions and sales. From 2015 to 2023, thanks to her former agent, Sophie Caporossi, in Washington D.C, she exhibited regularly at the French Embassy in the United States.

In 2017, she published her first book, "Théâtre d'eau" and in 2024 her second photo book "Rétrospective".