Futuristic plant worlds by Vincent Fournier
Short profile
Vincent Fournier, born in 1970 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, lives and works in Paris. After training in sociology and fine arts, he studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Photographie in Arles, graduating in 1997. He then worked as a creative director and photographer in the advertising and film industry.
His works are part of several permanent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York, the Center Pompidou in Paris, the LVMH Collection in Paris, the Baccarat Collection in New York and the Mast Foundation in Bologna. For commercial projects, he has worked with Louis Vuitton and Columbia Pictures for the film The Amazing Spiderman II, among others. In 2022 he won the Swiss Life 4 Hands Award and in 2023 the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature dedicated an exhibition of his Space Utopia series to him.
7 QUESTIONS TO VINCENT FOURNIER
Can you tell us a little bit about how you became a photographer?
My father gave me his camera when I was 15, it was the starting point.
Please share something about your images. What is your special interest? How do you choose the colors, composition, themes etc.?
My work explores the imaginary of the future, of yesterday and what we imagine for tomorrow. I am nourished by childhood memories, including visits to the Palais de la Découverte, which evoke scientific wonder. My fascination for those themes undoubtedly comes from the futuristic imaginary of the 80’s – movies, documentaries and TV series, anticipation novels – which mixed and superimposed in my memory, like the unlikely meeting between Tintin and Jules Verne in the space station of the movie 2001, the Space Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick.
Photo: Vincent Fournier | "Nerine incognita"
Do you use AI or other processing techniques for your photos?
I used AI for some 3D projects, just like a tool, but not for 2D images, well not yet! For the Flora Incognita series, I used photogrammetry and different sorts of algorithms.
Photo: Vincent Fournier | "Sargalda incognita" / "Zantedeschia incognita" / "Scara incognita" / "Undulata incognita"
Where does this interest come from?
My interest in these subjects comes from the stories they tell, but also from the aesthetics they create. Those stories reflect the dream of our civilisation with desire and fear.
How do you get inspired? And what inspires you the most? Films, books, or magazines? Or what surrounds you?
Science and everything in life.
Photo: Vincent Fournier | "Rosa incognita" / "Cypripedium incognita"
What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Every day is different, for the moment I am really into research, so I am reading a lot.
What else should we know about you?
After a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Sociology and Cinema at the University of Montpellier, he studied at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles and graduated in 1997. He lives and works between Paris and Arles.
His works are part of several permanent collections, including: Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) New York, Centre Pompidou Paris, Mast Foundation Bologna, Dragonfly Collection of the Domaine des Etangs in Massignac, LVMH Collection with the Bon Marché in Paris, Baccarat Collection New-York, Vontobel Art Collection Zurïch, Black Gold Museum Riyadh, Musée des Ursulines Mâcon, Bullukian Foundation Lyon, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature…
He has participated in several major group exhibitions such as The Universe and Art at the Mori Art Tokyo, Art Science Museum Singapore, Art and Science Fiction, the doors of then possible at the Centre Pompidou Metz, Unknown Unknowns An Introduction to Mysteries at the Triennale in Milan as well as solo exhibitions at the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo) during Foto Industria or a solo exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2014.
He has also collaborated with Louis Vuitton (Nicolas Ghesquière), Le Bon Marché (Paris), Baccarat New York (Gilles&Boissier), Isetan Tokyo, XPeng (Guangzhou) or for the movie The Amazing Spider-man II with Columbia Pictures.
In 2019 Vincent Fournier was the guest of the MET for a public presentation of his work at the In Our Time conference. In 2022 he is the winner of the Swiss Life 4 Hands Award. In 2023 the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature will devote a monographic exhibition to him entitled Uchronie and the Cite des sciences et de l’industrie an exhibition on the Space Utopia series.
