Voies Off Festival 2015

Among 1,430 applications received this year from more than 70 countries, the jury awarded the 2015 Voies Off Prize to Michel Le Belhomme for his series 'Les deux labyrinthes' and the 2015 SAIF Discovery Award to Mara Sanchez Renero for her series 'El cimarron y su fandango'. The 2015 lacritique.org Prize was awarded to Danila Tkachenko for his series 'Restrected Areas - 2014/2015'.

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Composition of the jury

Hélène Joye-Cagnard , director of the Bienne Festival of Photography - Switzerland
Emeline Dufresnoy , director of 'la Chambre' in Strasbourg - France
Jorge Alvarez , vice-president and member representing 'la SAIF'
Aline Phanariotis , curator of Voies Off
Christophe Laloi , artistic director of Voies Off

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2015 Voies Off Prize winner
Michel Le Belhomme, France
Les deux labyrinthes

Detached from a romantic and touristic vision of the landscape, the Michel Le Belhomme photographic research develop an ambiguous relationship with the representation, between document and fiction. Advocating an analytical photography, his images place the viewer in a visual precarious situation, looking for meaning to unravel fact from fiction. Disruption of scale reports, deconstruction of the environment, in situ installations ... every picture first opens a field of experimentation, a testing of reality. Where are we and what do we see exactly? Michel Le Belhomme repeats that he still has the fear of immediate satisfaction and prefers the floating state of metamorphosis.

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2015 SAIF Discovery Award winner
Mara Sanchez Renero, Mexico
El Cimarron y su fandango

In colonial times in the Americas, a fugitive black slave who led a free life, far from civilization, was called a cimarron. Fandango is a popular dance characterized by lively and passionate movements. In Mexico, this also means rumba, carousing and hubbub. Currently, the Mexican Constitution still does not recognize the community of African descent. Through her series « the cimarron and his fandango," Mara Sanchez Renero shows allegorically the past of these blacks, their way through the turmoil of colonial history, their integration in the territory and their identity feelings. More informations: www.marasanchezrenero.com

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2015 lacritique.org Award winner
Danila Tkachenko, Russia
Restrected Areas - 2014/2015

"I travel in search of places which used to have great importance for the technical progress - and which are now deserted. Those places lost their significance together with the utopian ideology which is now obsolete. Secret cities that cannot be found on maps, forgotten scientific triumphs, abandoned buildings of almost inhuman complexity. Any progress comes to its end earlier or later, it can happen due to different reasons - nuclear war, economic crisis or natural disaster.. For me it's interesting to witness what is left after."

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5 nominees

Alnis Stakle, Latvia: Melancholic Road

Ryan Spencer Reed, United States: Despite Similarities to Reality, This is a Work of Fiction

Andrew Fillmore, United States: The State House

Ulrike Schmitz, Germany: The missing link