“Even though we never wanted to include ourselves in a committed project, we naturally defend feminism, as women or actresses who played men. This also categorized us and led to a lot of questions about whether we were in a relationship and dealing with homosexuality or bisexuality. We talk about it, just as we talk about the whole world around us. It is also exciting to observe that a work lives in its context and is not perceived in the same way depending on the time in which it is revealed.” (Interview for Say Who, 2018)
Born in Paris 1990 and 1991 respectively, Elsa Parra and Johanna Benaïnous met in 2014 at the School of Visual Arts in New York. They were discovered in 2016 for their duo photographs, in which they embody characters between auto-fiction and staging. Very cinematographic, their universe is reminiscent of Cindy Sherman's portraits and plays with irony, narration and scenography.
Winners of the Picto Prize in 2017, the Public Prize at the Hyères Festival in 2019 and the Société Générale Collection & Beaux-Arts de Paris Prize in 2020, Elsa & Johanna are undeniably among the young revelations to be followed in the European photography scene. Their photographic series have been exhibited at the Beaux-Arts de Paris (2015), the Circulations Festival (2017), the Fiac (Fmac collections stand, 2018) and the Rencontres d'Arles (2020-2021).