Dr. Benjamin Pothier (b. 1973, France) is a Paris-based interdisciplinary artist, anthropologist, photojournalist and filmmaker, and a Fellow International of The Explorers Club (New York). He holds a PhD in Anthropology, Architecture and Arts from the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth, where he studied for seven years under Professor Roy Ascott, and is an Alumni Research Fellow in the University's i-DAT programme.
His photographic practice sits at the border of geographic exploration, art and science — focused on life in isolated, confined and extreme environments and the human encounter with landscape, and informed by the compositional traditions of Renaissance and Western and Asian landscape painting. He has completed seven analog space missions worldwide, including as an ESA-selected crew member at NASA's HI-SEAS and as Crew Commander at LunAres Research Station, has lived twice on active volcanoes (Ojos del Salado, Chile and Grímsvötn, Iceland), and in 2019 tested the RISD/NASA MS-1 Mars simulation suit on an active volcano within the Icelandic icecap.
In 2022 he became the first French sculptor to send an artwork to the International Space Station, through the Moon Gallery project in partnership with the Yves Klein Archives. His work has been published in GEO, The Telegraph, Libération and La Stampa, featured on PBS, Amazon Prime and ARTE, and he authored the analog-missions chapter of the Routledge Handbook of Space Policy (2024). He is represented by the Caring Gallery, Paris.
Selected Recognition
2026 — Selected exhibition, DongGang International Photo Festival, DongGang Museum of Photography, Yeongwol, South Korea
2026 — Selected, PHotoESPAÑA PRO Talento a Bordo, Madrid
2025 — Official Selection, Tom Sachs / NikeCraft I.S.R.U. Film Festival
2024 — Collective exhibition "Useful Fictions 4," Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris
2022 — PhD awarded (Anthropology, Architecture & Arts), University of Plymouth
2022 — Collective exhibition "Dreaming of Better Days," The Caring Gallery, Paris
2022 — First French sculptor to send an artwork to the ISS — the ISSBM sculpture (a drop of Yves Klein IKB Blue)
2021 — Collective exhibition "POEMA METEORITO," Mexican Consulate, Montreal
2018 — Elected Fellow International of The Explorers Club (New York)
2016 — Panasonic Master Class and exhibition, Paris Photo
2015 — ARS BIO ARCTICA 2014 Residency, Kilpisjärvi research station, Finland, Sápmi, Arctic Circle
2014 — Solo exhibition "SVALBARD," Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg (Institut français en Afrique du Sud)
2014 — Solo exhibition "8KNOTS," House of Norway, Paris (Royal Norwegian Embassy)
2013 — First French artist selected for the Arctic Circle expeditionary art residency (Svalbard)
