Alice Pallot

“Le sommeil des poissons” is a project that recounts an immersion into the world of archaeo-ichthyology in the Alpes-Maritimes region.

Drawing on the largest fish reference collection in Europe, housed at CEPAM (CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur) in Nice, and working from small fragments such as fish bones, archaeo-ichthyologists investigate how past societies exploited marine resources, at the intersection of human activities, anthropogenic pressures, and climatic variations. Moving beyond a strictly human-centered perspective, Alice Pallot creates the myth of a new gaze as a tool of resistance against regimes of perception that render ongoing transformations invisible. She develops a documentary of the subvisible, a narrative that seeks to question reality through the lens of imagination.

Through the accumulation of archaeological strata, a vertical reading of time, and the connections established between past societies and our contemporary world, this body of work examines the questioning of the foundations of modernity, the idea of progress, and the myth of stability upon which the sedentary societies we have built are based.

To carry out this research, the photographer was granted access to two caves in the region: the prehistoric Lazaret Cave in Nice and the Sainte-Maxime Cave in Quinson, where she accompanied archaeological excavations alongside a community of archaeologists. The time spent in these caves profoundly altered her perception of time. Remains dating back thousands of years coexist there with present-day forms of life: communities of swallows and bats continue to inhabit these spaces. In this environment, where ancient occupations overlap with contemporary presences, familiar temporal markers dissolve, giving access to a sensory experience of deep time.

Alice Pallot (born in 1995) lives and works between Paris and Brussels.
In 2022, she took part in the Résidence 1+2, where she developed the series Algues maudites in collaboration with CNRS Occitanie Ouest. The project was presented in numerous international exhibitions between 2023 and 2025. She has published several books and was awarded the Clim’Art Prize in 2025. Alice Pallot is represented by Hangar Gallery and is a member of the Tendance Floue collective.

This residency is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and DRAC PACA through the Capsule photography residency program.