Mélanie Wenger is a documentary photographer Founding Member of Inland Stories and National Geographic Explorer. She lives where she works, between New-York, Brussels, Paris and Cape Town. Graduate in Litterature and a Master's degree of journalism, she develops long-term documentary stories exploring photography, sound and video. She has been collaborating with Le Figaro Magazine, National Geographic, Stern, VSD, Liberation, La Libre Belgique, Le Vif/L'Express...
In 2011, she started to work on the series 'Wasted Young Libya' which took her three years and followed young freedom fighters and the aftermaths of the Libyan revolution.
Between 2014 and 2016, she focused on migrations between Libya, Malta and Belgium, for the series 'Lost in migration'.
Since 2014, she has developed a long-term documentary series on the intimacy of an elderly isolated lady in Brittany: 'Marie-Claude'. She is laureate of the 2017 HSBC Prize for photography and published the book 'Marie-Claude' with Actes Sud Editions the same year.
She has been working on 'Sugar Moon - To Have and to Hold', a documentary story exploring the schizophrenic exotic game industry and working on conservation, following anti-poaching teams, poachers and hunters in Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Texas and South Africa for four years.
In 2016, she started 'Broken Silence' a worldwide transmedia project collecting the stories of survivors of sexual violence. She has been exploring augmented reality to find new ways of communication between magazines and web-platforms.
Exhitibions
« Marie-Claude » (France)
Galerie Esther Worderhoff – Paris . May 2017
Galifet Art Center – Aix-en-Provence . June 2017
Maison de la photographie – Toulon . October 2017
Abbey Road studio – London . October 2017
Galerie Arrêt sur l’Image – Bordeaux . November 2017
Les Photographiques – Le Mans . March 2018
Boutographies – Montpellier . May 2018
Festival Photo en poésie – Landivisiau . May 2018
'Unframed' Noor/Brassage photographique - Cinéma Galeries, Brussels June 2018
« Broken silence »
Arrêt sur l’image galerie – Bordeaux. November 2017
Salon de la photographie – Strasbourg . March 2018
Brassage photographique – Brussels June 2018
« Bush babies »
Mills Pond Gallery – Long Island, New-York (USA) March 2018
Actes Sud