Scarlett Coten dedicates herself essentially to personal long-term projects, mainly exploring the themes of identity, gender, and intimacy through photographic portraiture. Coten’s work has been widely exhibited and recognised with numerous awards, including the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2016 and the Photolucida Top 50 Critical Mass 2018.
In 2019, Plan américain has been shortlisted in the Sony World Photography Awards (Portraiture category), the PHmuseum Photography Grant, the Grand Prix ImageSingulières of documentary photography, and the Bourse du Musée Albert-Kahn.
Coten started her exploration of the complexities of contemporary masculinity in the Arab World (Mectoub 2012/2016) well before the resurgence of feminist activism sparks global conversations, and more recently, the age of Trump inspired her to continue the next chapter in the U.S. (Plan américain 2017/2019)
By revealing, from the Mediterranean Basin to the United States, how masculinity is experienced and expressed by the young generation, Coten’s approach, which is empathetic, shakes up sexist and reductive gender stereotypes, engaging us to break the myths and rethink notions of gender and identity beyond our usual cultural and geographical borders, telling the story of discrimination from a positive and innovative viewpoint.
Her work, addressing themes of patriarchy, power, identity, race, sexuality, the unequal power relations between genders, and the female perception of men, considers the necessity of alternative viewpoints in order to reimagining gendered identity for today’s world, , and the reversal of the gaze performed in this photographic experience is accompanied by a desire to subvert an art history itself not much inclusive.
Monography
Still alive, Actes Sud Publisher, France – 2009
Upcoming: Look at me (Mectoub and Plan américain) – 2021
Anthologies and Exhibition catalogs
Patriarchy is burning, Gang of Witches editions, France – 2019
Firecrackers: Female Photographers Now, Thames and Hudson, London – 2017
Second Biennal of the Photographers from the Contemporary Arab World, Institut du Monde Arabe – 2017, Silvana Editoriale– 2017
Photographers Sketchbooks, Thames and Hudson, London – 2014
Caravane(s), L’erre de rien Editions, France – 2014
Mediterranean landscapes, Macrosonges Editions, France – 2013
La photographie entre histoire et poésie, Editions Mazzotta, Photographies de la collection Fnac – 2002
More info: www.scarlettcoten.com