ÉTATS DES CORPS : Félicités 2026 | de l’École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (France)

Exhibition LES FÉLICITÉS ARLES-ISTANBUL Istanbul Photo Festival and IFT branches

ÉTATS DES CORPS Félicités 2026 | from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (France) 212 Photography Istanbul For its 9th edition, the 212 Photography Istanbul festival has invited the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP) to present, with the support of the Institut français, the work of its 2026 Félicité·e·s (distinguished graduates).

This collaboration forms part of the Bicentenary of Photography, which France will celebrate from autumn 2026 to autumn 2027. Founded in 1982 in Arles, the ENSP is the only national art school in France entirely dedicated to photography.

Through a three-year master's programme, it trains its students in the techniques, history and theories of the image. Since 2024, the ENSP has honoured its top students each year with an annual exhibition.

It is thus the works of eight young artists, who were awarded the jury's special commendations for their degrees in June 2026, that the 212 Photography Festival is hosting this year.

Entitled États des Corps, the exhibition conceived for the festival highlights these eight young graduates' primary interest in the body, not necessarily as a subject, but as a genuine entity closely linked to a context, an environment and a culture with which it interacts and which in turn shapes it.

Through a progressive display that initially favours concrete approaches rooted in territory (Aida Lechugo), the animal world (Susanna de Vido) and sisterhood/family (Arina Starykh), before evolving towards more abstract and intangible concepts related to dazzling light (Gaspard Labastie), the ghostly (Renato Balla), disappearance (Guillaume Chevalier Fustec), invisibilisation (Lila Niel) and, finally, the sky with its celestial bodies (Hugo Jacq), the exhibition invites us to view the body in all its cultural, social, political, scientific, as well as poetic, aesthetic, philosophical and fantasised complexity.

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