Vincent Fournier

Born in Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, in 1970, Vincent Fournier grew up in Brittany, France. He received an undergraduate degree in sociology in 1993 and a master’s degree in visual arts in 1994, both from Montpellier University. Later, he completed a diploma program in photography from the National School of Photography in Arles in 1997. Fournier's works reveals his passion for science, technology and their mysteries but also witnessing utopia worlds as fantasized by humankind. He has kept from his childhood the fascination science and technology. He accounts his interest for sciences to the numerous afternoons spent with his parents, as a child, visiting the Science Museum in Paris. He was impressed by the universe of machinery and the magic behind it. Fournier’s interest focuses on the part of dreams and of mystery of scientific and technological research. His universe, inspired by Jules Verne, Jacques Tati, Charles Darwin and David Cronenberg plays with certain forms of utopia to use the fictional and wonderful potential of science. ‘I am always intrigued in the element of dream and mystery in scientific and technological research: observing the stars, traveling in space, producing living beings or re-programming them, reading thoughts and seeing the invisible..."The photographs are questioning the world and playing with the perception and reality. “Observe the stars, travel in space, make life or reprogram it, see the invisible…my photos question the world which surrounds us by creating shady, improbable, sometimes inconsistent situations, always on the border of serious history and childhood dreams”, he said. Whether he uses research made to reinvent living kind or studies made to project potential futures, Fournier always leaves a wide place to imagination. His pictures ally poetry and a touch of irony by mixing dichotomies, serious and ludicrous, disorganized and organized and create ambigous compositions creating a kind of tension and ambigoity His works are regularly exhibited in international galleries, museums and festivals, such as les Rencontres d'Arles, la Fondation EDF, le Musée des Arts Décoratifs de la ville de Paris, Contemporary Art Contemporain of Pontmain and Z33 in Hasselt, Moscow Science Museum, Centre de la Photographie de Genève, le NAI (Institut d’Architecture des Pays-Bas), l’Espace Quai1 de Vevey, Diesel Art Gallery in Tokyo. His work can be found in several collection such as the LVMH Contemporary Art Collection , MAST Museum in Bologne, and the Art Collection Schlumberger Primat.