Photo © Marylise Vigneau
City - NOMINEE: Marylise Vigneau
Trouble in Paradise / Havana/ Cuba
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In Havana time is an unavoidable character . Destructive or facetious, sardonic or nostalgic, political or imaginary, irreverent in any case, time sprawls its texture and shadow all over the city. Half a century of defiant isolation, embargo and excruciating austerity has done its work. In the vale of years, the revolution seems to have been confiscated, the superb and sensuous fabric of the city has crumbled beyond repair, people have gone into exile building a very vivid absence, heroes have aged, swimming-pools have been left empty and disbelief and reluctance towards propaganda is everywhere.
Time has collapsed here but time is on the verge of unwrapping. On Havana’s streets, there is a charge of anticipation, and one senses a people yearning to escape this fallen paradise and to embrace the world.
These pictures have been taken between June 2014 and June 2016.
About author:
Marylise Vigneau is a French documentary photographer and author based between Austria and Pakistan.
Raised in a secretive Parisian family, she developed an early taste for investigation and justice.
At la Sorbonne, her "Compared Literature" master was about cities as characters in Russian and Central-European novels; where and when the most apparent narrative gets lost in a heady, haunting uncertainty.
Despite her literature studies, her mode of expression has become photography without her knowing precisely why - maybe the mix of precision, immediacy, truth, and lies behind every image.
What attracts her first and foremost is how human beings are affected by physical and mental borders, this fugitive space where an unexpected, bold and fragile act or a glimpse of freedom can arise.
She works preferably on long-term projects to better explore memory and place. She likes to capture in-between moments in regions saturated with history and socio-political tensions
On the way, she won some awards: Second place in the professional Portfolio category, Sony World Photography Awards 2023 / Finalist winner, category Portrait Series, POY Awards 2023 / Winner in the portraiture category, Xposure Awards 2022 / Nominated for the Oskar Barnack Award 2022 / Nominated for the Pictet Prize 2019/ Winner of "New Visions", Cortona on the Move 2018/ Winner of the Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize 2018 / Finalist for Prix Médiapart 2018
She is represented by the Anzenberger Agency in Vienna
Time has collapsed here but time is on the verge of unwrapping. On Havana’s streets, there is a charge of anticipation, and one senses a people yearning to escape this fallen paradise and to embrace the world.
These pictures have been taken between June 2014 and June 2016.
About author:
Marylise Vigneau is a French documentary photographer and author based between Austria and Pakistan.
Raised in a secretive Parisian family, she developed an early taste for investigation and justice.
At la Sorbonne, her "Compared Literature" master was about cities as characters in Russian and Central-European novels; where and when the most apparent narrative gets lost in a heady, haunting uncertainty.
Despite her literature studies, her mode of expression has become photography without her knowing precisely why - maybe the mix of precision, immediacy, truth, and lies behind every image.
What attracts her first and foremost is how human beings are affected by physical and mental borders, this fugitive space where an unexpected, bold and fragile act or a glimpse of freedom can arise.
She works preferably on long-term projects to better explore memory and place. She likes to capture in-between moments in regions saturated with history and socio-political tensions
On the way, she won some awards: Second place in the professional Portfolio category, Sony World Photography Awards 2023 / Finalist winner, category Portrait Series, POY Awards 2023 / Winner in the portraiture category, Xposure Awards 2022 / Nominated for the Oskar Barnack Award 2022 / Nominated for the Pictet Prize 2019/ Winner of "New Visions", Cortona on the Move 2018/ Winner of the Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize 2018 / Finalist for Prix Médiapart 2018
She is represented by the Anzenberger Agency in Vienna