Frédérique Le Brun

Photographer and author, I have one eye on the Middle East , another on Brittany , but often with both feet Paris .

I first followed a course in sociology , focusing my interests on the condition of foreigners in France , the procedures for expulsion from the territory, the history of immigration… Sociology offered me a great way to learn to look at the world, and I turned my telescope to the Middle East, traveling in Iran , in Iraq and Turkey while I was studying Persian and Kurdish at Inalco.
My language training has always been associated with photographic practice. I went to Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992 and 1993, shortly after the first Gulf War, to produce reports on the reconstruction of villages and schools destroyed by the Saddam Hussein's army.

I started photography on my own, then became an editorial secretary (a part-time job) especially in the youth press, while continuing to take photos.
In 2014-2015, I trained as a EMI photojournalist in Paris.

What do I love most about exploring in photos?

- issues linked to exile and in particular the reception conditions (non-reception) of asylum seekers (life in exile camps in France: Paris, Calais, Saint-Denis…);

- the Middle East : education in Iran (I followed the activities of a private kindergarten that teaches children about equality and ecology) ; Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (I met the survivors of a campaign to exterminate the Kurdish village population); the Iranian cultural world (I am present every year in June at the Festival Cinéma (s) d'Iran, in Paris…);

- public health and environment issues: asbestos workers, victims of environmental pollution due to asbestos, green algae in Brittany, etc.);

- current events , social movements and commitments : I like demonstrations and I follow them as much as I can (labor law, against climate change, memorial events, women's rights, etc.); and I also like to photograph people who are involved locally: SNSM volunteers in Brittany, composters in Malakoff ...).

In 2020 and 2021, I'm writing on the Kurdistan (story to be published) and I photograph the exile camps in France . In doing so, I find myself at two ends of the same story, the one which leads individuals who are victims of oppressive and corrupt regimes to flee their countries in an attempt to save their lives and who arrive in European societies where States are toughening the conditions of asylum.