Born in Loire Atlantique (France), Guy Hersant entered apprenticeship at the age of sixteen and obtained his CAP in photography while working as an assistant for several photographers. He later opened his own studio in Lorient in 1975. There he concentrated on portraits and reporting until 1990.
He went to Africa for the first time in 1971, where he was an assistant in a studio run by a Frenchman in Bamako). It was the beginning of a personal photography, the revelation of the taste for traveling and the passion for Africa.
He co-founded the collective of Brittany photographers "Sellit" in 1979. He created in 1982, and managed until 1989, the meetings of the photography in Brittany, then the gallery Le Lieu in Lorient. Afterward, Guy Hersant settled in Paris and photographed architecture. He travelled again in West Africa and made photographic series of the valleys of the river Niger.
He co-led the African Photography Encounters from 1994 until 2001. He has conducted research, wrote and published on the photography of studio and itinerant photographers in Africa, contributing to awareness of the works of these photographers.
In 1995, he began a series of photos of groups in the forest of Crécy (Somme, France) which began the spirit of the project Please do not move! that began in Kano (Nigeria) on the instigation of the Alliance française of this city in 2000. The project was to develop in the following years in France in Amiens, Le Touquet, Mulhouse; in Libreville (Gabon), Gao (Mali), and in January, 2010 in association with Jean-Michel Rousset and Eric Adjetey Anang in Teshie (Ghana). It is this work which confirmed the vision, at the same time documentary and human, which crossed the whole work of the photographer.
Expositions
Nature humaine. Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch – Issoudun . October 2007 - April 2008
Portraits au Gabon. Festival « Les photographiques » - Le Mans . February 2008
Les hommes sont des acteurs… Théâtre La Passerelle, Scène nationale – Gap . October - December 2007
Portraits de groupe. Château de Suze-la-Rousse – Drôme . September - December 2007
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle. Festival Photo Nature & Paysage – La Gacilly . June–September 2006
(travail). La Filature, Scène nationale – Mulhouse . January–March 2006
Please do not move!. Alliance française de Kano (Nigeria) – octobre 2005 ; Université Rennes2 . April-June2006
Africa-urbis – exposition collective. Musée des Arts Derniers, Paris - May–September 2005
Tout le monde. Musée du Touquet (Pas de Calais) - March–June 2005
Kan be soni. (Avec G.Clariana, Th.Corroyer, O.Dumbia, M.Sanogo, S.M.Sidibé), École Supérieure d’Art et de design, Amiens, avril 2002; Institut national des arts Bamako (Mali), October 2001
Les routes du fleuve. La Bibliothèque - Saint-Herblain, 1999; Université de Picardie, Amiens, September 2001
Un itinéraire africain : 1971-2000. Aubenas - July 2001
Vous avez dit rural ? (avec M. Massi, H. Bramberger, M. Garanger), B.P.I. du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1983
Voyages à Ouessant. Musée des Arts décoratifs, Nantes, 1979
Vu en Chine. (avec F. Huguier, F. Lochon, F. Saur), B.P.I. du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1979
Editions
Nature humaine. 40 colour photographies, text Pascal Mougin . Editions du Musée de l’Hospice Saint–Roch. Issoudun 2007
Tout le monde. 45 colour photographies, comments by Laurence Perrigault, Editions Filigranes 2005
Please do not move ! in Kano. 23 colour photographies, poems by Sam Cambio, Editions Filigranes, 2005.
Harar. 19 black & white photographies, text by Bernard Noël, Editions Filigranes, 1999.
Champs. 65 colour and black & white photographies, text by Guy Marival, preface Bernard Noël, Editions Filigranes, 1999.
L’Africaine. 13 black & white photographies, text by Ch. Jacob . Editions Filigranes 1993
La Chine quotidienne. 70 black & white photographies, text by R. Trottignon, preface E. Manac’h, Editions Leoreca, 1979.
Films
Guragu, DVD movie on street disabled people in Lagos (Nigeria). 18 minutes, July 2001
Photographes guinéens, video, 8 minutes 30 seconds, Maison européenne de la photographie, 1994.
Public collections
FRAC Bretagne, Rennes
Galerie Le Lieu, Lorient
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, Paris
Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, Paris
Le Ring – artothèque, Nantes
Musée de Bretagne, Rennes
Published texts and conversations
Le Photographe doit être gai Malick Sidibé, Editions Filigranes and Afriphoto, 2005.
AFRICA URBIS O.Sultan, catalogue, Editions Sepia - 2005
Studio Malick, Catalogue Les Afriques, Editions Autrement, Paris, 2004.
Preface for Photographes ambulants, Editions Filigranes et Afriphoto, 2004.
Preface for Gabriel Fasunon, Editions Filigranes and Afriphoto, 2004.
A vignette from Lomé : the street photographers’blues, Visual Anthropology, Photographies and modernities in Africa volume XIV, number 3, Harwood publishers academic, 2001
Interview of Emma Sudour, for "Voir" les photographies, n°9, February 2001
Lomé, le blues des photographes ambulants, Africultures, July 2001
Au temps de Sékou Touré ; Portraits peints d’Addis Ababa, in Anthologie de la photographie africaine, Editions Revue Noire, Paris, 1998, Prix Nadar 1999.
Anthologie de la photographie africaine, Editions Revue Noire, 1998
Entretien avec Brigitte Ollier, Libération, 17 October 1997
36 ans de photographies en Guinée, Le Photographe, December 1994 – January 1995
Workshop with the students of Collège Alan Seeger, Vailly-sur-Aisne 2007 /2008
Workshop in Ecole des Beaux-Arts «Le Quai », Mulhouse – December 2005
Intervention on architecture and urban landscapes photography at Ecole des Beaux-arts de Paris – February 2004 – October 2004
Artistice residence in Le Touquet : one week workshop with adolescents – February 2004
Les photographes ambulants au Togo, Bénin, Ghana et Nigeria, supported by Afrique en Créations / AFAA, 20 September to 16 November 1999
Autour de la Bibliothèque de France, with students in second year at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, 1993-1994.
Photographies négociées at Club Méditerranée of Cefalu (Sicilia), 1985.
Curator of exhibitions
2004
Malick Sidibé and other photographers from Mali : Vive la COPHOTEX, la Filature, Ecole des Beaux-arts, Le Quai and Musée d’Impression sur Etoffe in Mulhouse.
2001
Les photographes ambulants au Ghana, Nigeria, Togo et Benin.
Gabriel Fasunon photographe de studio au Nigeria.
Artistic direction and co-ordination of KAN BE SONI with photographers from Mali and France. Amiens.
1998
Boxing Ghana. photographies from the archives of Ghanaian Ministry of Information on boxing, a mythic sport in Ghana during the 60s and 70s, and on the boxing studios in Accra by Francis Provençal, a young Ghanaian photographer.
1996
Photographes ambulants in Addis Ababa ( Ethiopia).
