Born in 1992, Clémence Elman is a photographer based in Arles. After studying political science, she graduated from the École nationale supérieure de photographie (Arles) in 2020. Her works have been exhibited at Villa Noailles for the 35th edition of the Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories in Hyères, at the Athens Photo Festival, and the Dior Prize for Photography and Visual arts for Young Talents (2021). In 2022, she was a resident at the Villa Pérochon (Niort) during the Rencontres de la Jeune Photographie Internationale and exhibited at the OVNI Festival (Nice). She has also been awarded the Eurazeo Grant in 2022.

Clémence Elman’s artistic practice revolves around the construction of identity, our relationship to the “Other”, and our environment, particularly through the lens of exoticism, and the representation of these themes in photography. Through the medium of documentary-fiction photography, she creates narratives that blur the boundaries between the real and the imaginary and questions the documentary faculties of fiction – and vice versa – and the significance of reconsidering reality and its use in photography in today’s context.
In residence at the Centre de la photographie de Mougins for six weeks (December 2022 + February 2023). With the support of DRAC-PACA.

During her residency in Mougins, the photographer was particularly interested in tracking down the presence of an Anglo-Saxon identity through a number of clues and preconceived clichés: folk dancing, pictorial representations, the tartan motif, a stay at the Windsor Hotel (Nice), and so on.