Bertrand Meunier

Born in 1965 in Lyon, Bertrand Meunier lives and works in Paris.

Since the late 1990s, Bertrand Meunier has been creating photographic series that examine, in a direct yet sensitive manner, the regions in which he immerses himself over the long term. Noted for his photographs documenting social changes in contemporary China, he subsequently turned his attention to Asian megacities. 

At the same time, he undertook an extensive project on Pakistan and Afghanistan in collaboration with the magazine Newsweek . Closer to home, he chronicles daily life in French prisons ( Conversations , documentary film, 2024) and the life of his own family (TV series The Distant Man and The Shelter ). 

Member of the collective Blurred Trend since 2007, his documentary approach has been complemented by narrative elements, enhanced by the poetry of his exclusive use of black and white. Embracing its share of subjectivity, his work is built on a constant, productive back-and-forth between here and elsewhere. 

In 2023, he published Erased (published by Atelier EXB), the culmination of his long-term project on China. The exhibition of the same name is on view at the Musée Niépce (Chalon-sur-Saône, France) and the Musée de la Photographie (Charleroi, Belgium). His photographs are included in numerous public and private collections, including the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the CNAP, the Wuhan Museum of Fine Arts, and the Neuflize OBC collection. The series Erased has received several awards, including the Nicéphore Niépce Prize in 2007 and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2001. In 2022, Bertrand Meunier was also the recipient of the Ministry of Culture’s 2022 Grand Commission for Photojournalism (Radioscopie de la France).