From July 25 to September 5, 2026, the Quai de la Photo will dedicate all of its exhibition spaces to Meetings, a work by Hungarian photographer Katalin Száraz Davies.
Each year, the photography center chooses to highlight one of the projects selected during its monthly portfolio reviews, thus affirming its support for emerging contemporary artists. For this edition, the choice fell on Rencontres , presented in partnership with the PICTO Foundation.
A graduate of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest with a master's degree in photography, and having spent a semester at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Katalin Száraz Davies blends experimental, narrative, and portrait photography in her work. Her images have been published and exhibited in New York, London, Paris, Milan, Budapest, Berlin, Gothenburg, Bratislava, and Vienna.
Based in Paris since 2016, Katalin Száraz Davies has created this work based on her own migration journey. "Rencontres" explores uprooting, the construction of identity, and the experience of exile.
The series brings together portraits of women living in Paris, far from their countries of origin, photographed in their living spaces. After each session, the participants are invited to write down their reflections and emotions related to their lives as expatriates. These handwritten accounts are presented alongside the photographs. The exhibition thus offers a dual portrait of these women: the one captured by the photographer, and the one each woman reveals about herself.
Analog photography is central to Katalin Száraz Davies' approach. The slower pace imposed by film, according to her, fosters a shared creative time: the photograph is developed through exchange rather than in the moment, creating a space of trust between the photographer and the women she meets.
“As a woman living abroad in Paris, I forged connections by photographing other women living in the city, who were also far from their countries of origin,” the artist explains. The project, she adds, reveals both the vulnerability and the strength of these women, and fosters “a form of sisterhood” among them.
Encounters , by Katalin Száraz Davies
Quai de la Photo, 9 Port de la Gare, 75013 Paris
From July 25 to September 5, 2026, every day from 12pm to 00am (free admission)
Quai de la Photo, 9 Port de la Gare, 75013 Paris
