Paris Photo continues its rise in power. This year, the return of the Grand Palais allows the fair to double its surface area compared to previous years. The publishing sector benefits from this gain in space and is also expanding, superbly located on the balconies overlooking the nave. In its extension, an exhibition designed as an educational project caught our attention.
Imagined by theInstitute for Photography (Lille) in collaboration with Photo Élysée (Lausanne) « L is for Look » is an exhibition which traces the evolution of children's photography books since the 1930s. Its originality? It was designed, from its genesis, as an inclusive project around the pedagogy of images. The scenography and cultural mediation devices proposed aim to highlight the playful, educational and emancipatory potential of this literary genre through a multi-sensory interaction with the works.
The exhibition is intended to be presented in several European locations from September 2025: Photo Elysée in Lausanne, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the Rencontres d'Arles, the Photographer's Gallery in London, the CNA in Luxembourg, Foto Arsenal in Vienna and finally at the Institute for Photography in Lille when it reopened. As a whole, the project brings together more than a hundred works around six chapters highlighting the great diversity of this little-known genre, to which the biggest names — men and women — in photography have contributed. For these artists, the youth photo book can also constitute a form of catalyst as the creative freedoms are wide.
At the Grand Palais, visitors, young or old, will be able to discover these experiences in advance, thanks to an overview organized around five themes: Learning with the anthropomorphism dear to William Wegman (born in 1943) and his now famous pointers from Weimar; Frame with Tana Hoban (1917-2006) who never parted with an openwork bookmark with which she suggested people frame reality; Transformer with Claire Dé (born in 1968) author of numerous children's books designed with studio photography; Drawing with Tomi Ungerer (1931-2019) who enhanced his graphic work with comical collages from magazine clippings and finally Animating with Alexandre Rodchenko (1891-1956) and Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958), a leading couple of Russian constructivism.
Noé Kieffer, responsible for artistic and cultural transmission at the Institute for Photography, emphasizes that during the development of the project the teams were very attentive to ensuring that the content was viewable with different modes of interaction. The journey is thus discovered through manipulatable books which dialogue with original works or wallpapers, tactile images for people with a visual handicap, videos or sound creations, objects of all kinds, walls on which draw, a studio to create your own scenes and photographs…
It’s a fascinating — and innovative — dive! — in the history of the children's photo book, which can be learned through different reading levels, inviting visitors to manipulate, observe and play with visual elements to awaken their senses and their imagination, develop their own outlook and learn to read the world visually, from a very young age.
Zoe Isle de Beauchaine
L is for Look is to be discovered on the first floor of the Grand Palais, search for “ Educational Project » on the map!
