Both trained as a photographer at The Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière

and as a social scientist at the EHESS, Jean-Robert Dantou investigates the connections between photography and social sciences for more than 10 years. He explores social issues such as memory, mental health, or migrations.

Jean-Robert Dantou is involved in long term and/or collaborative projects. These include a two years’ residence with an interdisciplinary social scientists’ team at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris on the photographic representation of madness. This project leads to the photographic series Les Murs ne parlent pas.

Sharing his time between institutional commissions and artist residencies, his work results in several exhibitions and number of publications. In 2016, he receives the award of the Best Photographic Book of the Year from PHotoESPAÑA Festival for Les murs ne parlent pas.

For his series Objets sous contrainte (part of Les murs ne parlent pas), Jean-Robert Dantou takes photos of objects which contains the story of people suffering from psychiatric disorders. He tries to get out of the spectacular and the stigma, to make people appear behind these objects.

Objets sous contrainte (2012-2014) is the first part of the project Les murs ne parlent pas. In this work, Jean-Robert Dantou chose to photograph objects that bring us into the daily lives of people described as schizophrenic, bipolar, suffering from obsessive disorders or depressive syndromes. With the idea of ​​taking distance from the Diane Arbus’ sensational style, Jean-Robert Dantou works directly with patients or caregivers on objects that in their eyes make sense.

Each story immerses us into the crucial question of the perception of dangers, of the acceptable and unacceptable risks. These “symbolic objects” allow us to tell the stories that weave the lives of “psy”, of those who suffer, those who care for them, those who love them and live in uncertainty.