Isabelle Giovacchini FR, b. 1982
Isabelle Giovacchini is a French artist living and working between Paris and the Mediterranean region. Her practice takes an experimental and empirical approach to photography, drawing on the medium’s vocabulary — imprint, fragment, double and spectre — while diverting it from its purely figurative and representational functions.
Her works often originate from found objects and photographs gathered from archives and the places she explores. Through manipulations in the studio and darkroom, she investigates the materiality and disappearance of the photographic image, seeking the threshold at which an image is on the verge of vanishing.
Education
Isabelle Giovacchini graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles in 2006. In 2018–2019, she completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at Université Jean-Jaurès in Toulouse.
Solo Exhibitions (selected)
- Plongées, fragments, répliques, Centre d’Art Le Lait, Albi, France, 2026
- Plongées, fragments, répliques, Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France, Pontault-Combault, France, 2025
- Ce qui fut, ce qui est, Musée Bourdelle, Paris, France, 2025
- Vif-argent, Moments Artistiques, Paris, France, 2022
- Quand fond la neige, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse, Biennale de la Photographie de Mulhouse, France, 2020
Group exhibitions (selected)
- Stop the Machine, MRAC, Sérignan, France, 2026
- Un féminaire, frontière, image/imatge, Orthez, France, 2025
- Apophénie, FRAC Sud, Marseille, France, 2024
Biennale Son, Paris, France, 2023
- L’ami.e modèle, Mucem, Marseille, France, 2022
Avec l’Espace, Centre national d’études spatiales, Paris, France, 2022
- La Photographie à l’épreuve de l’abstraction, Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France, Pontault-Combault, France, 2020
Awards & Residencies
Isabelle Giovacchini received the Prix Boukris from the Fondation des Artistes in 2023 for her ongoing project around the archaeological site of Lake Nemi. The project had previously received support from the Institut français in 2021.
In 2020, she was awarded the Epkhrasis grant by ADAGP / AICA France and a grant from the Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington.
Her residencies include the Villa Medici in Rome in 2020–2021, the Cité internationale des Arts in Paris in 2012, the Frac Lorraine in 2011, Berlin in 2008 and São Paulo in 2006.
Collections
Her work is held in several public collections, including the CNAP – Centre national des arts plastiques, the Société française de Photographie, Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Frac Franche-Comté, Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Frac Occitanie-Montpellier and the Artothèque du Tarn.
Publications
- Nemi, texts by Malek Abbou, Nathalie Giraudeau and Antoine Marchand, Le Lait / CPIF, 2026
- Contained Energy, text by Jean-Christophe Arcos, Poursuite, 2025