‘ZAVIER’

Art-Icon: Faces

Les rencontres de la Photographie d’arles 2025

In 2025, Kim Lang was invited to participate in Art-Icon’s exhibition Faces, presented along the banks of the River Rhône in the heart of Arles, as part of the world-renowned Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles: one of the most significant photography festivals in the world.

The exhibited photograph, taken from Lang’s personal project My London, portrays Zavier, a young Londoner at the beginning of his modelling career. The image offers a moment of quiet introspection, capturing the person behind the professional image.

The wider project focuses on young individuals of colour within London’s modelling scene, combining portrait photography with one-hour interview sessions about their personal lives, ambitions, and expectations. The aim is to place the emphasis on the individual, their identity, stories, and experiences, rather than reducing them to visual symbols for fashion.

The series is photographed entirely in black and white, a deliberate choice to draw attention to the character and personality of each sitter, stripping away aesthetic distractions. Presented within the larger context of Faces, Lang’s work sits in conversation with portraits from around the world , each with its own narrative and perspective.

The photograph was exhibited as part of the programme for Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles 2025, further extending the conversation around identity, visibility, and representation within contemporary portraiture.