For about ten years, Mathieu Ménard was an art book publisher. Since 2017 he has devoted himself entirely to photography. For him, aesthetic research always guides the documentary approach: the image is a way of making a commitment tangible, of meeting people and places, and of bearing witness to the social issues that move him. A common thread runs through his work: shining a light on places, regions and people who have been made « invisible ».
His documentary work is distributed by the Zeppelin agency. His reportage regularly appears in the press: Les Cahiers du Cinéma, La Croix, Figaro Magazine, GEO, L'Humanité, Libération, Le Monde, L'OBS, Pèlerin, Sciences & Vie Junior and Télérama. His personal work has been shown at several festivals in France and Europe, from the VIF Vincennes Images Festival to the Rencontres Photo du 10e, from the L'Homme et la mer festival in Le Guilvinec to the Montmélian Photo Festival and the Bratislava European Photo Month.
In 2020, Mathieu Ménard won the Voltaire Photography Prize with his series « Femmes de la Halte », exhibited by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux at the Château de Ferney-Voltaire in 2021, then at the Château de Bussy-Rabutin in Burgundy in 2022.
An echo within Crossed Perspectives: Simon Arcache, shown at Crossed Perspectives #1, is also a winner of the Voltaire Photography Prize, also exhibited by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux. The same thread links the two editions.
The series shown in Hendaye is the result of a three-year commitment. Mathieu Ménard set out to meet women of the sea all over Brittany, gradually building bonds with them.
These are portraits of women who have an intimate relationship with the sea and who have determinedly entered a world long reserved for men. Artists, craftswomen, oyster farmers, fishers, rescuers, ocean-going captains, shipwrights: each brings her own sensitivity and skills, and often still has to face criticism and stereotypes.
« By exploring different lives at sea, I want to shine a light on women in all their diversity and individuality, and show that the sea has no gender, but offers a myriad of human adventures. »
Mathieu Ménard
At the heart of these paths, passing things on plays an essential role. Whether it comes from a family line or a defining encounter, it places these women within a collective history, that of seafaring people.
His series « Women of the sea, of salt and of life » is shown in the exhibition Crossed Perspectives #2: Telling the World, at the Mendi Zolan cultural venue (Hendaye), from 16 September to 10 October 2026. Free entry.
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