In his apartment in Paris, Katie Kheriji-Watts interviewed Samuel Gratacap about his 17 years dedicated to studying international migration. As a French photographer and journalist, he has practiced his art in extreme environments, reflecting both the best and worst of humanity. The Welcome Europa project, nominated for the 2025 Prix Elysée, fits perfectly within this framework by portraying the journeys of people seeking asylum in the European Union through the Western Balkan countries.
Samuel Gratacap
1982, France
Nominee
- Prix Elysée 2025
Samuel Gratacap (FR, 1982) is a French photographer whose work spans documentary photography and photojournalism. He is interested in the phenomena of migration and places of transit generated by contemporary conflicts. His projects are the result of long periods of immersion, taking the time needed to understand the complexity of situations and to restore that which, beyond numbers, flows, maps and geopolitical data, constitutes the heart of the matter: trajectories and personal experience.
Samuel Gratacap graduated from Marseille’s School of Fine Arts; his work has been exhibited at Le Bal and the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, MUDAM Luxembourg and at the FOAM Museum in Amsterdam among others. Between 2017 and 2019, he led the Bilateral project between France and Italy, a book about which was published by Poursuite Editions in 2023. He is a regular collaborator as a photographer for Le Monde, notably in Libya and Ukraine.
Artist's websiteProject
Welcome Europa
“Welcome Europa aims to document the journeys of women and men through places of relegation in the Mediterranean and Balkans areas. By focusing on border crossings into the European Union, collecting portraits and revealing solidarity initiatives, I seek to reveal the violence and obstacles that punctuate these trajectories, as well as to bear witness to the concrete solutions proposed by civil society in terms of welcoming and, sometimes, providing vital assistance to exiles. This project stems from a larger documentary work I completed during the last 15 years in the Mediterranean area, and I am now continuing it by linking it to the Western Balkans, to build a visual story about migration and solidarity towards people in exile on both routes which remain the most active to enter Europe.
At a time when Russian aggression has led Ukraine to apply for accelerated membership of the European Union, the countries of the Western Balkans would like their various candidacies to be re-evaluated in light of this context of war. For more than 20 years, European migration policies have revealed their ineffectiveness in face of this problem, which has endured to the present day. I would also like to depict the methods used to curb border crossings, creating a sort of photographic repertoire of the abject, and bearing witness to the changing landscape. Finally, I’ll continue to highlight a world of solidarity, with those who fight and mobilize where they live, as if to counterbalance violence: when exile meets hospitality.”