LONDON.- French visual artist Léa Habourdin, who is represented by Fisheye Gallery, is the winner of the 2023 Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award.

The announcement was made on Wednesday 10 May during a special ceremony that took place in the Nikon Gallery, Somerset House during Photo London 2023.

Léa Habourdin’s series is a set of exquisite large-format works encapsulating the beauty of the primary French forest. Silkscreen printed onto velutto cotton paper, Léa takes elements she finds in the forests – birch leaves, thyme and mulberries for example – and crushes them up to create natural pigments.

Habourdin’s series was born from the observation that there are no more forests that are unexploited by man in France. It is the untouched forests that survive: a natural place that has not been strongly influenced by humans in recent decades. Accompanied by foresters and conservators, Habourdin has spent the last two years documenting these protected places.

Reducing the ecological footprint of a photographic production as much as possible, she invokes a sustainable approach by using the photosensitivity of chlorophyll to make images. One of the characteristics of the anthotype is that the print is not "fixable", it will react eternally to light: the more you look at the image the more it disappears. These anthotypes are accompanied by large prints made with natural pigments. From the bright yellow of birch leaves to the pale pink of poppy petals, the image of the forest is perennial but very evanescent. It leaves the possibility of resonating with the personal and comforting image, the fantasy we all have of a primary forest.

Sofia de Maduro, who chaired the jury for the award, states: “Léa’s forest images are magical and mysterious. We are becoming increasingly aware the world holds the key to our collective future. And so for all their ephemeral beauty, Lea Harbobin’s forest images are a timely reminder of the importance of these secret, special places. The fact that Lea’s anthotypes are made using naturally extracted pigments show an artist in total harmony with her subject. So hidden within her work is an incredibly important message about global sustainability. Lea is a worthy and appropriate winner of the emerging photographer of the year award”

On receiving the award, Léa Habourdin says: "’I thought I saw a forest, or rather I saw the memory I had of it’. I'm thrilled to receive the PhotoLondon x Nikon Emerging Photographer of the Year award. It's been three years working on untouched and preserved forests, experiencing the act of harvesting plants to print my pictures, the same way that we need wood to light a campfire. I am grateful to all the passionate exchanges I had while showing this work, everybody is concerned, that's a hope for the future that we are writing. I would like to thank CNAP, CIPGP, and of course Fisheye Gallery for their support.”

Born in 1985 in the north of France, Léa Habourdin first studied printmaking at Estienne in Paris and then photography in Arles. Attentive to the diversity of life forms, her practice seeks to draw other ways of resonating with Worlds. She observes the relationship we maintain with other animals, with landscapes and play with the notions of survival, fracture, reconstruction to recompose another view of what we call “the wild”. She was awarded the Carte Blanche PMU – le BAL in 2015, the CIPGP research grant in 2019, and the CNAP creation grant in 2020, and her work has been shown in several festivals (Photo Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Lianzhou festival in China, Photo Saint Germain in Paris). In 2018 she exhibited “Survivalists” at the GoEun Museum in South Korea and took advantage of the opening of the exhibition to launch her publishing house: Mille Cailloux (which she now runs with Jessica Martinato) where the act of publishing will be conceived of as an artistic practice.

As the winner, Léa receives the ultimate Z Series kit suited to their photography style – including a Z 5, Z 6II or Z 7II camera and a choice of two NIKKOR Z lenses. She will also receive specialist Nikon training to help take advantage of the capabilities that Nikon’s Z range has to offer.