Pigalle People: 1978–1979 — Jane Evelyn Atwood — Le Bec en l’air — 2018

In 1978 and 1979, Jane Evelyn Atwood photographed the transgender women who lived and worked around Pigalle, away from the more familiar spectacle of the boulevard de Clichy. The encounters developed over more than a year, establishing the sustained involvement and attention to individual lives that would become central to her documentary practice. Photographs and Atwood’s retrospective text describe a neighbourhood shaped by friendship, nightlife, vulnerability and exclusion, while acknowledging what a camera cannot fully disclose about another person. Published decades after the photographs were made, Pigalle People preserves a record of a community and a particular moment in Paris before AIDS, violence and changing conditions transformed the area. Its bilingual presentation brings the images together with the photographer’s reflections on those encounters.

Technical Sheet
Photography and text: Jane Evelyn Atwood
Publisher: Le Bec en l’air, Marseille
Published: 2018
Photographic period: 1978–1979
Pages: 156
Photographs: 70, black and white
Dimensions: 170 × 230 mm
Binding: Hardcover
Languages: French and English
ISBN: 9782367441269