An inveterate traveller, Françoise Huguier has a passion for Africa which has found expression in two books, Sur les Traces de l'Afrique Fantôme(Maeght, 1990) and Secrètes (Actes Sud, 1996). Her solo exhibition at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in 1998 was À l'Extrême, representing several years' work in Kwazulu-Natal, in South Africa. In 1991 she discovered the photographers Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé – the latter won the International Photography Prize in 2003 – and helped make their work known. She then organised the first Biennial of African Photography in Bamako in 1994.
Winner of a Villa Médicis Hors les Murs award for Sur les Traces de l'Afrique Fantôme, she received the accolade again in 1993 for En Route pour Behring (Maeght), an account of a lone journey through Siberia. The photos making up the book were shown in many galleries and festivals and won her a World Press Award. Deciding to spend several years in St Petersburg, she made a film in 2007 on a community apartment block there; the subsequent book, Kommunalka, was published by Actes Sud in 2008.
In 2006 she had returned to her experience as a prisoner of the Viet Minh in Cambodia, and her J'avais Huit Ans (I Was Eight Years Old) was published by Actes Sud that same year.
Since 1983 she has been photographing haute couture workshops and shows twice a year. Actes Sud published her Sublimes in 1999.
All her books have been the subject of exhibitions around the world.
Françoise Huguier is represented by the Rapho Agency, Paris.
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