PHILIPPE GUIONIE
Abidjan, Lagunes, Côte d'Ivoire
A historian by training, Philippe Guionie is the exponent of a documentary-style photography which addresses themes of memory and the various constructs which surround identity. His principal mode of representation is the portrait. His guiding principle as a photographer: to put faces to those human memories which lack them, often by bringing together photos and sound recordings. Through his photography, he writes a human history and inscribes it in time, both in terms of collective memory and contemporary experience.
He is the author of several photographic works which include ‘African ex-soldiers’, ‘A small corner of paradise’ (Les Imaginayres / Diaphane, 2006), ‘Africa-America’. (Diaphane, 2006) & “Swimming in the black sea” (Filigranes éditions, 2014); his personal themes are displayed in galleries and festivals, in France and abroad (Arles Meetings, the Sète festival of ImageSingulières, Gallery of the Château d’Eau in Toulouse, Polka Gallery in Paris, Tbilisi Photo Festival in Georgia, various French cultural institutes in Africa and network of French alliances in South America,…).
A winner of numerous photographic prizes including the Prix Roger Pic 2008 for his photographic series entitled ‘The rifleman and the three rivers’, he is in charge of a course on the Semiology of the Image at the Training College for Photography and Multimedia in Toulouse (ETPA) and leads a whole host of workshops in France ( Arles Meetings ) and abroad. A member of the Myop Agency since 2009, Philippe Guionie is represented by the Polka Gallery in Paris.