Cendre (born in 1992) is a non-binary visual artist based in Saint-Étienne. An ecologist by training, they hold an engineering degree in agronomy and a Master’s degree in ecology from the Natural History Museum in Paris. Self-taught in photography, their work has been screened at Nuits Photo in Paris and at the Nuit de l’Année at the Rencontres d’Arles. They have also exhibited at the Barcelona Experimental Photography Festival and held a first solo exhibition at SpazioSerra in Milan. In April 2025, they will present their current project at Circulations festival in Paris.
My photography practice is based on experimentation and alteration. I am interested in the margins (abandoned, polluted places, undesirable species, humans outside the norm) which undergo constraint and refuse to do so by modifying themselves. I consider film as a living material, capable of mutations. The processes are at the heart of my approach, they are the driving force behind my creation rather than the final images – with strong colors and contrasts – that will result from them.
My research questions our relationship with the non-human and the way of cohabiting with trouble in a damaged earth (Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway). Faced with a changing world, I question the forms of adaptation, resistance and intertwining between critters. In recent years, I have developed an interest in ceramics, in particular glaze research.
—
2024 ~ Mentoring Nouvel oeil, GAZE (Paris, FR)
2023 ~ Professional training in wheel throwing, ceramics, at Grégoire Scalabre workshop (Paris, FR)
2019 ~ Master degree in cultural mediation, CNAM (Paris, FR)
2015 ~ Engineering degree, master of science in ecology, Agroparistech (Paris, FR)
EXHIBITIONS
Solo
2024 ~ Midnight burns, curated by Agathe Kalfas, spazioSERRA (Milano, IT)
Group
2025 ~ Circulations, CENTQUATRE (Paris, FR)
2022 ~ Ephemeral rituals of audiovisual consumption EXP.22, Experimental photo festival (Barcelona, SP)
SCREENINGS
2023
Les Ruines de ce rêve, Plein phare, Galery Hasy (Bois du Pouliguen, FR)
Les Ruines de ce rêve, La Nuit de l’année (Les Rencontres d’Arles, FR)
Les Ruines de ce rêve, Gran Lux (Saint-Étienne, FR)
Les Ruines de ce rêve, FOTOHAUS (Bordeaux, FR)
2022
Les Ruines de ce rêve, INEDITS 2022 (Saint-Étienne, FR)
Les Ruines de ce rêve, projected at Les Nuits photo festival (Paris, FR)
AWARDS
2023 ~ Mentor prize, selected for Bordeaux and Arles’s sessions,
winner of Arle’s session [jury prize]
2022 ~ LNP award for photographic movie, in competition Les Ruines de ce rêve [jury’s favourite]
TALKS
2023
Climate crisis and non-human photography : creating with the environment, with Ella Morton and Isabelle Gagné, EXP.23, Experimental photo festival (Barcelona, SP)
2022
Land Narratives photo presentation, with Leah Band, Daniel Derdula, Emma Godfrey Pigott, Alex Kryszkiewicz, Anna Lukala, Helena Neeson, Clare Thomas, Rachel Wegh, online
PRESS, INTERVIEWS
2024 ~ Fiertés, Fisheye magazine #65, May – June 2024
2023 ~ Interview for Women Alternative Photography Group, online
2023 ~ And still I rise, Sola Journal issue no. 2, March, printed zine
2022 ~ Aeonian magazine, issue no. 7, July, online