Ed Alcock

In May 2025 the prize was awarded to Ed Alcock, whose candidacy was sponsored by Dominique Gaessler. Born in Norwich (United Kingdom) in 1974, Alcock has been living in France since 2000 and is a member of the Myop agency. For over fifteen years, he has been pursuing personal projects in parallel with press assignments, notably for The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and El País.

“Secrets and Lies” spans fifteen years of photographic work devoted to the family, transmission and the sense of belonging. The title refers to family secrets and convenient stratagems that are sometimes exposed and discredited, a theme that has been present in his work from the outset.

Alcock describes his photographic practice as an “intimate and narrative exploration of the real”. His method lies at the intersection of the autobiographical, documentary and fictional genres. It embodies the personal approach of autobiography, for in its own way each of the series is deeply rooted in the author’s own history, exploring his relationships with close family members, the question of paternity, one’s relation to one’s native country and social change over several generations. From the documentary it takes a direct and often posed and frontal approach, which sometimes involves an underlying investigative intent and combines various types of images, usually taken by him but sometimes simply found. Finally, from fiction it borrows a predilection for the unspoken, constructing images that suggest more than they show, and in certain cases using drawing or film to complete and extend the ensemble.

The exhibition is structured around five series created between 2009 and 2025.

Hobbledehoy (2009-2013) is centred on his son Nino and explores the end of childhood and the transition to adolescence; Love Lane (2014) and The Wait (2015) are both variations on the family secret; Home, Sweet Home (2016–20) is an examination of people’s attachment to their native country during Brexit and the nature of national identity; and Buried Treasure (2025) revisits a fundamental family legend and its grey zones, contrasting the power of this myth with the prosaic, everyday reality of the places concerned. The exhibition’s overall layout is chronological. As if zooming out, it proceeds from the oldest, most intimate works to more recent ones that adopt a resolutely documentary approach.