Clément Chapillon is a photographer based in the south of France (Bouches-du-Rhône). His work explores Mediterranean worlds through a visual language infused with “poetic realism.” He examines territories, their inhabitants, and the invisible ties that bind them, constructing narratives at the boundary between documentary and imagination. His projects are rooted in both contemporary and historical testimonies, and often involve collaborations with scientists, writers, or musicians to reveal the sensitive and geological memory of places
In Israel and Palestine, his first long-term documentary project, Promise Me a Land (Kehrer Verlag, Leica Prize 2017), questions the multiple dimensions of the “promised land.” The series has been published in numerous media outlets and exhibited from Paris to Jerusalem. In 2018, he received the Fondation des Treilles Prize for Les Rochers Fauves, an exploration of insularity in the Aegean Sea, published by Dunes Éditions and widely exhibited across Europe.
Alongside his artistic research, he co-founded the documentary production studio Unforeseen, through which he has produced major commissioned works for institutions and brands such as Nespresso and SNCF. More recently, he created Matières Sensibles, an independent analog photography lab in Vauvenargues—both a space for creation and transmission—where he develops an experimental and sensitive approach to photographic printing.
His practice also integrates an expanding pedagogical dimension. Following an island-based workshop held on the island of Groix in 2024, “in the open sea where I was born,” which brought together 19 children around the notion of the oceanic feeling, he is developing transmission projects in 2025 and 2026 at the intersection of creation and research. In this context, he will lead a workshop in February 2026 with La Fabrique du Regard at Le BAL, centered on a project linking photography and photosynthesis. This work will result in an exhibition and a publication edited by Le BAL.
Since 2023, he has been developing the project I Lost Myself in the Sea of Life, focused on the disappearance of the Dead Sea. The project takes the form of a dialogue between images, archives, and mineral matter, in collaboration with composer Éryck Abecassis, to give visual and sonic form to the gradual erasure of a unique landscape. This project has notably been supported by CNAP and awarded a grant from the Fondation Carasso.
Please, contact me by email for any specific request: clementchapillon@gmail.com