Transatlantica

Born in 1988, Elsa Leydier graduated from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles in 2015. After spending several years in Brazil, she now lives and works between Paris and Marseille. Her practice explores how images shape the imaginaries associated with specific territories. She works with existing photographs—tourist images, archival material, press photos, or popular representations—which she reappropriates, transforms, or recomposes. Her work was notably recognized in 2019 with the Maison Ruinart/Paris Photo Prize and the Dior Photography Award for Young Talents.

Presented at Intervalle in 2019, Transatlántica is Elsa Leydier’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Created between 2016 and 2018, the series draws on images that have helped construct a collective imagination of Latin America. Rather than producing new photographs of these territories, Leydier reworks existing images to reveal their ambiguities: exoticism, tourist fantasies, colonial narratives, and political tensions.

The title Transatlántica evokes the circulation of images and narratives between Europe and Latin America. By reworking these visual materials, Leydier highlights what they show as well as what they leave out of the frame. Photography thus becomes a tool for deconstructing imaginaries and rewriting the narratives associated with a territory.