For the third consecutive year, CAVILAM – Alliance Française has hosted its Francophone Photography Residency, in partnership with Vichy Culture, as part of the 14th edition of the Portrait(s) festival.
Following Christophe Acker (2024) and Namsa Leuba (2025), the 2026 edition continues this sensitive and socially engaged artistic journey.
This year, photographer Julia Gat turns her lens toward the richness and diversity of the international community at CAVILAM – Alliance Française. Some of the people portrayed came to France to study the French language, while others were forced to leave their home countries out of necessity.
A graduate of the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and the School of Visual Arts in New York, Julia Gat has recently exhibited her work at the Rencontres d’Arles, the Centre Photographique de Marseille, the Ouagadougou Biennale, and the PhotoBrussels Festival.
The photographs created during this residency will be displayed on the façades of the University Campus / CAVILAM – Alliance Française from June to December 2026.
An invitation to discover the Francophone world from a different perspective—through the faces and personal journeys of those who bring it to life.
A Word from the Photographer, Julia Gat
During this residency at CAVILAM – Alliance Française, I met students from all over the world who were eager to take part in a photographic experience. Together, we took the time to find the most authentic way to portray each person: highlighting their individuality, their relationship with Vichy, and the visible or deeply personal connections they maintain with their country of origin. These portraits are intended to be gentle and minimalist, infused with a sense of shared introspection.
Through our conversations, I had the privilege of discovering fragments of lives, cultures, and languages from Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Tibet, Nepal, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Australia, Mexico, and Colombia. Some had come to France to escape difficult political circumstances, while others had simply chosen to learn a new language. Every one of these encounters was deeply meaningful.
In the intimacy of these shared moments, we spoke about human relationships, family and sisterhood, resilience and creativity, nostalgia and the experience of exile, multiple identities and geopolitical conflicts, anxiety and ways of coping with it, as well as everyday routines, dreams and faith, female and male perspectives, invisible disabilities, little-known cultures, and even soup recipes.
This residency strengthened my belief that photography is, above all, a means of creating connections—of meeting one another and approaching others with humanity. I am deeply grateful for these exchanges, and I hope these images will convey at least a part of what we shared.
— Julia Gat