The jury unanimously decided to award the grant to Géraldine Millo, praising the uniqueness of her photographic approach, which combines a high degree of documentary rigour with a poetic and aesthetic vision, applied to a world that is all too often overlooked: that of apprenticeship.
Géraldine Millo (1978) is based in Fécamp. For the past six years, since she began focusing on vocational schools and young people, the photographer has been constantly exploring the world of apprenticeships and the transition to adulthood that goes hand in hand with it. Through artist residencies in schools and workshops with young people, she produced her first major series, Les héritiers, set in various secondary schools, including the woodworking college in Envermeu (2012), the agricultural college in Neubourg (2013) and the maritime college in Fécamp (2014).
Adopting a documentary approach, she develops, within the constraints of documentary photography, a photographic language of her own. “I create,” she says, “documentary images that seek to open up the imagination and the realm of dreams by focusing on a single line of inquiry and exploring it at length. This approach—the vocational school—allows me to sketch the contexts in which these young people are growing up and to portray a generation grappling with the institution and the economic world.”
GÉRALDINE MILLO is a graduate of the École Louis Lumière and holds a PhD in art theory. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions (La traversée des apparences, Le Portique, Le Havre, 2016; Territoires partagés, Centre photographique, Pôle Image Haute-Normandie, 2012) and solo exhibitions (vocational colleges in Neubourg, Envermeu, Chartres, Fécamp and Evreux, and at the Théâtre Le Passage, Fécamp, 2016). She is represented by the Signatures agency. In 2016, Géraldine Millo was one of fifteen photographers selected by the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) in partnership with the CéTàVOIR association in Sète as part of the ‘La jeunesse en France’ commission.
