Born in La Louvière, Belgium
Lives and works in Berlin
Studied Photography at Ar.co, Lisbon and Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent.
Graduated as a Master in Applied Communication specialized in Media Education at IHECS, Brussels.
Bénédicte Blondeau’s work finds its inspiration in her immediate environment. The spaces depicted in her pictures are mostly empty and silent and could be seen as a kind of « heterotopia », a perambulation from nature to city, a way of experiencing urban spaces, a selection in and an interpretation of a material, constructed and pre-orchestrated world. Corridors, halls, waiting rooms, passages create spaces of otherness in which the rules and norms of society no longer apply. Their emptiness leaves an impression to the spectator, who observes from a certain distance. Impression implying a kind of speculation, coming from what we see but also from what we imagine from it. Here and there characters emerge, fragile and uncertain, without being seen completely. The space becomes more than what is represented, inviting to wonder what happened or will happen inside, but also outside of it. The environment depicted in her images becomes like another space, real and absolutely unreal at the same time. An expanding parallel universe which finds its source in urban interiors or sometimes in nature, used to create images whose ways of interpretation contrast with the actual flow of images generated by the media in our societies.
Bénédicte Blondeau also worked as a documentary movies director.
Solo and group shows:
2019 November Exhibition, Planet Flow - Berlin
2019 Loading Fest Projection night - Porto
2019 Bolseiros&finalistas, Ar.co - Lisbon
2018 The Essential, Loosen Art - Rome
2018 Diaporama, Gulbenkian foundation - Lisbon
2017 Sorry Not Sorry, Rust vzw - Ghent (Belgium)
2017 Summer Exhibition 2017, Ar.co - Lisbon
2015 Het Zuiden van Europa - Ghent (Belgium)
2014 Academie voor Beeldende Kunst - Ghent (Belgium)
Publications:
2019 Ce qu'il reste - photo book published by XYZ Books
2019 Phases Magazine
2019 The Heavy Collective: Friday Fry Up
2019 GUP magazine: GUP #61 - Escape
2019 Ce qu'il reste - self-published photo book
2018 Scopio Magazine - Contrast, Porto
Talks:
2019 Unseen Book Market - Amsterdam
2018 Ciclo de Conferências de Fotografia III - Unidade curricular: Fotografia,
Arquivo Fotográfico de Lisboa, Lisbon
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