Louis Roederer Foundation Discovery Award 2026
27/01/2026
Since 2018, the Louis Roederer Foundation has been supporting the emergence of new perspectives in photography through the Discovery Award of the Rencontres d’Arles that involves galleries, art centers, associative spaces and institutions who can submit a project by an artist whose work deserves to be discovered.
© Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles
This year, the selection committee, including Christoph Wiesner – director of the Rencontres d’Arles – and Nadine Hounkpatin – guest curator of the 2026 edition of the Louis Roederer Foundation Discovery Award – has selected 7 projects, from over 300 applications received from all over the world, that will be exhibited in Arles from July 6 to October 4, 2026.
The best way to tell the truth… might be to accept that in photography, it is neither immediate nor neutral. The seven artists brought together for the 2026 Discovery Award show that truth is constructed through relationships, proximity and the engagement of bodies, memories and legacies. Rooted in multiple cultural and historical narratives, activated by ritual, movement or intimate archives, photographic truth becomes processual and situated. It embraces subjectivity as an ethical, critical and political condition for accessing a reality that is always in flux, never given once and for all. On the contrary, this reality is constructed, sometimes contested and always transformed through these multiple and committed perspectives.
The selected artists
- Souleymane Bachir Diaw (Senegal) presented by La.ima (France)
- Jordan Beal (Martinique, France) presented by La Station Culturelle (Martinique, France)
- Amira Lamti (Tunisia) presented by Doors (France / China)
- Mallory Lowe Mpoka (Canada / Belgium / Cameroon) presented by Occurrence (Canada).
- Magali Paulin (France) presented by doubledummy (France)
- Phan Quang (Vietnam) presented by Galerie Bao (France)
- Charlotte Yonga (France / Cameroon) presented by Fondation H (Madagascar)
During the opening week, a jury invited will determine the Discovery Award, which will reward one of the 7 selected projects by an acquisition of artworks in the amount of €15,000; festival visitors will vote for the Public Award, which will reward one out of the seven projects by an acquisition of artworks in the amount of €5,000. The artworks will integrate the Rencontres d’Arles collection.
Nadine Hounkpatin © Chiara Santarelli
La commissaire, Nadine Hounkpatin
Born in Bohicon, Benin.
Lives and works between Europe, Africa and its diasporas.
Nadine Hounkpatin’s curatorial practice focuses on the historical and artistic narratives of the ‘Tout-Monde’ (Whole World), their circulation and their memories. Co-founder of TheArtMomentum platform, she designs projects at the crossroads of African and international scenes. Her collaborative practice aims to write a more inclusive and decentralised history of art, in dialogue with contemporary realities. Since 2021, she has been directing the touring exhibition Memoria: récits d’une autre Histoire (Memoria: narratives of another History), a pioneering exhibition dedicated to women artists from Africa and the diasporas, initially presented at the FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, then in Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Yaoundé (Cameroon) and Antananarivo (Madagascar). She lectures at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and sits on award juries (MEP × Collection Leridon × Cité internationale des arts, Prix pour la Photographie du musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Photography Prize, 2025), assisted in the selection of the first winners of the Hermès Foundation’s ‘Latitudes’ programme, in partnership with the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation and the International Center of Photography, and provides curatorial support to artist-researchers in the ‘Résonance’ residency programme, IF Nigeria × Cité internationale des arts × ART X Lagos.
