artist in residence
2026
Complaints
Léo Keler delves once more into the complaint books compiled during the 2019 National Grand Debate, a public consultation launched by the government in response to the Yellow Vests crisis and to gauge the expectations of the French people. Having pored over and studied these thousands of contributions preserved in the Normandy departmental archives, he brings to light the concerns, frustrations and hopes that are currently felt across the region. A region that is at once rural, industrial, maritime and agricultural, Normandy reveals through these writings the challenges relating to public services, work, mobility and even a sense of political neglect.
Setting out to meet the people, explore the landscapes and examine the issues raised in these notebooks, Léo Keler presents an overview in which the words written in 2019 still resonate in today’s lives and places, through archives, personal accounts and documentary photography.
A project supported by the CNAP (National Centre for Visual Arts).
A French photographer born in 1992 in Paris, Léo Keler lives and works there. The son of photojournalist Alain Keler, he is influenced by American view-camera photography, which he practises, and has developed a hybrid approach that blends socially engaged photojournalism with artistic creation. His work combines documentary investigation with reflections on the body, movement and representation. His reportages, which focus on contemporary social divisions, are set in France and abroad, notably in Georgia, Moldova and Belgium. A member of the Hors-Format collective, he regularly contributes to Le Monde and Libération. Winner of the CNAP grant in 2025, he has exhibited at the Théâtre national de Bruxelles and the Rencontres d’Arles.