After winning the prestigious Carmignac photojournalism award in 2014 the Fondation Carmignac and Collection Lambert announced an exhibition by the French photographer Cristophe Gin.

The award, worth €50,000 ($55,000), supports photographers documenting conflicts around the world, particularly in places where human rights and freedom of speech are often violated. The grant goes towards producing a project along with a traveling exhibition. Previous winners include Robin Hammond, and Newsha Tavakolian, reports the British Journal of Photography. 

Nicolas Bourriaud, art critic and former director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, was a jurist, along with Nigel Hurst, director of Saatchi Gallery in London.

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Christophe Gin Camopi, February 2015. Photo: courtesy Fondation Carmignac.

Gin became the sixth laureate for his photojournalism work across France, especially his images taken in French Guiana, an overseas territory on the northeast coast of South America.

The 51-year-old photographer has been working in the area since 2001, revealing the regions’ unique cultural, political, and socioeconomic circumstances through his black-and-white images. In the past 20 years, a gold rush there has led to enormous inequality, as well as environmental hazards. “Mining sites resemble bomb craters, the landscape around them gouged out and burned down,” reports the Guardian.

Christophe Gin Camopi, March 2015. Courtesy Fondation Carmignac.

The self-taught photographer started his career in the early 1990s and rose to prominence for his long-running series, Nathalie: Conduct of Poverty, 1994-2001, where he documented the daily life of a singular subject over a period of seven years. Through this and other projects, he developed a reputation for his hard-hitting approach to photojournalism.

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In his French Guiana series, he portrays his subjects as inhabitants of an exotic, foreign place to reinforce the distance between France and its troubled overseas territory.

Christophe Gin Saint-Élie, April 2015. Photo: courtesy Fondation Carmignac.

“Christophe Gin: Carmignac photojournalism Award” runs from July 3 – November 6, 2016 at Collection Lambert, Avignon, France.