Structure

Reinvents the family portrait and provokes us to reflect on family as the fundamental cell on which every society is based.

Among the first uses of photography since its invention in 1839, there are those of the individual portrait and the family portrait, which are arranged in photo albums. Today, how can photography still tell the visible and the invisible of a family sociology? With her first book Structure, Isabelle Boccon-Gibod has appropriated the genre of the family portrait to better incite us to re-interrogate ourselves, at the time of the all-digital and the shared image, on the heart of the essential structure of our societies: the family. A subject that is so much debated today, when it comes to legislating on parenthood in the light of the new technologies available for childbirth. By creating this corpus of still images in black and white made in large format 13x18, the photographer achieves a real anthropological work, since it allows not only to represent, but also to put the observed subject at a distance, to objectify it. By the radical choice of a methodical shooting protocol, each family portrait intrigues and incites to reflection.