France. The department of photography of the Ministry of Culture was slow to find its leader since the departure of Fannie Escoulen in June 2024. The appointment of Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller ends this post vacation. After four years spent in Johannesburg, the regional audiovisual attaché of the French Embassy in South Africa joined rue de Valois on September 15. His career in particular internationally slices with that of his predecessors Daniel Barroy (2010-2016), Sophie Léron (September to December 2016), Marion Hislen (2019-2021) and Fannie Escoulen (2021-2024).
“” I started my career in Magnum Photos and became interested in photography from my history studies and then copyright and image rights in those who followed ”, Explains Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller, a graduate of a magisterium of international negotiations at the Aix-Marseille 1 University and a DESS of law of international relations and cultural exchanges in Sciences Po Lyon. “It was within the framework of this DESS that I did the internship that I dreamed of Magnum Photos before joining the agency six months later as manager of exhibitions in France, Eastern Europe and Russia (from 2003 to 2007) then director of the cultural department from 2008 to 2010”, she said. She will then join the Lyon Opera as manager of patronage and partnerships before being appointed in 2011 by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs as cultural and audiovisual attaché at the French Embassy in Sydney where she will remain five years. Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller will be successively responsible for the Patronage and Partnerships of the Institut Lumière in Lyon (2016-2019) and project manager Contemporary Art and Cultural Development at the Burgundy Regional Council (2019-2021), the year she left for South Africa as a regional audiovisual attaché at the French Embassy in South Africa with the mission of the audiovisual cooperation policy and cultural and creative industries.
His new functions of head of the department of photography within the Directorate General of Artistic Creation (DGCA) therefore mark for Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller a return to the Stricto Sensu photography. Its years in Magnum, Australia and South Africa make it nevertheless not an unknown for many.
A busy roadmap
“I intend to continue what we do my predecessors who have accomplished an important and pugnacious work both on the support of creation and on heritage”she explains while mentioning “His wish to increase it and expand dialogue with other disciplinary fields”. In its roadmap, also two major projects: the bicentenary of photography celebrated in 2026 and 2027 and the creation in Arles of a museum of photography in charge of the valuation of photography collections, notably national, announced by Rachida Dati in early July during the inauguration of the meetings. For the time being, Delphine Fournier, delegate for visual arts at the DGCA, on which it depends, which follows this file, and on which Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller is now associated. A thorny file whose announcement has aroused surprise in an era of budgetary restrictions where the institutions in charge of the conservation and valuation of collections, are themselves in need of financial resources, and where the bicentenary committee of photography itself is above all a coordination and labeling body but no funding.
