Sébastien Van Malleghem BE, b. 1986
Sébastien Van Malleghem is a Belgian photographer whose work is rooted in long-term documentary investigations of social systems, marginality and human vulnerability.
Since 2008, he has developed immersive projects addressing institutions and environments marked by tension, violence and social fracture, including the judicial system, prisons, morgues and territories shaped by exclusion or displacement.
Working in a direct and often stark visual language, Van Malleghem approaches photography as a means of confronting both collective structures and individual experience.
His practice combines a strong commitment to fieldwork with an interest in psychological states, fragility and the way individuals inhabit extreme or unstable environments. Alongside these social investigations, his work in Northern Europe has opened onto a more introspective relationship with landscape, solitude and the natural world.
Education
Sébastien Van Malleghem graduated from Le 75 photography school in Brussels in 2009.
Sébastien Van Malleghem teaches news photography in the Master’s programme in Journalism and Communication at UCLouvain.
He has been a Nikon Europe Ambassador since 2017 and regularly contributes as a freelance photographer to publications including De Standaard, TIME and The Washington Post
Solo Exhibitions (selected)
- North Road, Le Botanique, Brussels, 2016–2017
- Prisons, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, 2015–2016
Group Exhibitions (selected)
- Reinventing Photography / Bicentenary of Photography, Hangar H18, Brussels, 2026
- Écocides. La planète en sursis ?, Géopolis – Centre Photo, Brussels, 2025
- Pop Up Exposition / Flash Sale, Espace Photo Contretype, Brussels, 2024
- Iconobelge, AntwerpPhoto, Antwerp, 2018
- Eyes Wild Open, Le Botanique, Brussels, 2018
- What Remains – Between Beauty and Decay, CODA Museum, The Netherlands, 2016–2017
Awards
In 2025, Sébastien Van Malleghem was selected for the national photographic commission Reinventing Photography, organised by Hangar and the CNAP.
In 2024, he received a journalism grant from the Belgian national association of journalists and was also a recipient of the Earth Investigation Grant Programme. In 2023, he received a Creative Europe grant for work developed across Europe and the Arctic region, as well as another journalism grant from the Belgian national association of journalists.
His series Mexican Morgues received the HiP Award in the Society category in 2019, while Allfather / Shame of the Sun received the Belfius National Press Photography Award in 2018–2019.
Publications
- Yderst, Atelier EXB, 2026
- Allfather, Photopaper & Renegades, 2021
- Nordic Noir, self-published, 2017
- Prisons, self-published, 2015

