Mathias Depardon

About Mathias Depardon

Mathias Depardon (FR, 1980) currently resides and works in France. He studied communication and journalism at ISFSC in Brussels, then joined the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, shaping his career as a photojournalist.

Since 2011, Depardon has presented various projects globally through individual and collective exhibitions, earning recognition with several awards as the Yves Rocher Foundation Photo Prize. In 2019 was among the photographers chosen for the “Regards du Grand Paris”, a grant sponsored by the Ateliers Médicis and the CNAP (National Center of Applied Arts). He was also selected to be part of the Grande Commande for photojournalism granted by La Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in 2022. He is currently a member of the National Geographic Photo Society.

Photographic approach of Mathias Depardon

Mathias Depardon’s photographic approach aligns with a documentary vision, often exploring socio-economic and political issues in tense contexts. Moreover, all of his projects are carried out through immersive processes within the documented geographical space.

For the project "Tales from the Land in Between," he documents conflicts related to water resources leading to a decrease in the water levels of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In recent years, Mathias Depardon has dedicated his efforts to a new project called “Moving Sand”, where he reports on the use of sand and the environmental and social consequences of its extraction. This project has been produced in collaboration with the French news outlet Le Monde.

Exhibitions

His diverse projects have been showcased both in France, at Musée Carnavalet, PhotoDoc, Paris Photo, Les Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Musée des Archives Nationale in Paris, and worldwide at the Instituto Cervantes in New York, Institut Français in Istanbul and Tianshui Photography Biennale in China. In 2023 he participated in the collective exhibition “Melting Islands” at Hangar in Brussels.

Art Book Publications by Mathias Depardon

Mathias Depardon has a significant work titled "Transanatolia," published by André Frère Editions in 2020. In this book, he documents both the remnants and the evolution of a society torn between modernization and preservation. The chosen geographical area is Anatolia, also known as "Greater Turkey."

His work is regularly featured and published in leading magazines and journals such as National Geographic, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The British Journal of Photography, The European Photography Magazine, among others.