Benoit Fournier was born in 1981 in Carpentras, France. He grew up in the Alps, surrounded by nature. He took up photography when he was 20, with the encouragement of his father, a journalist, who gave him his first camera. With this new passion, Benoît began a life of studying and living abroad. He holds a Master's degree in International Business Administration, and his studies focused on Latin America. To further his education he lived in Mexico and in Spain, and in 2006 he went to Rio de Janeiro where he decided to settle. Invaded by nature and man, the Brazilian city is at the heart of his photographic works. He now focuses only on these personal projects. He recently launched two books of photography: City of Bandeira (published by Batel) and Water Memories (published by Andrea Jakobsson). His new book project, Babylon (with Madalena Estudio), journeys between fiction and reality, crossing the favela of Babylonia, in which Benoît has lived since 2013. Benoît’s visual world resounds with his experiences and travels; his work resides in a place between personal and collective memory and explores existential themes and the nature of man. Born of experimentation, of immersion and authentic feelings, his series spotlights to the harmony between the individual and his natural environment. Through the lens of reality and imagination, Benoît’s examination of the individual within the world is at once intimate and profound. Today Benoît works out of his studio in the Favela of Babylonia. Since 2015, he has led a photographic workshop with young people from the neighborhood, with the aim of stimulating the group’s artistic creativity.
