Françoise Spiekermeier
War reporter & anthropologist
Trained as a sociologist (Sorbonne, Paris), the study of anthropology and tribal societies led me to a practice of journalism and reporting that combines text and photography. Photography took me to war reporting (for Paris-Match, in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya,...), and war photography to the practice of portraiture of all these women who have maintained their beauty in the heart of chaos. The beauty in war led me to document beauty rituals around the world through the production of documentary films (Les Nouveaux Explorateurs Canal+) and the publication of a photography book, "Beauties, beauty will save the world" (ed. La Martinière). Through this atypical and adventurous journey, I carry within me feminine values and a definition of beauty drawn from my observations and experiences through encounters with these women from around the world. Relying on the projection of photographs, my conferences allow me to enact the value of transmission (inherent to femininity), sharing, and travel while exploring the meaning of beauty through the secrets of feminine beauty.
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Her conferences
BEAUTY THERAPY
- I like the idea that beauty or let's say aesthetic emotion is healing energy. Aesthetic emotion stimulates our instinct for survival: not just for the purpose of mating and perpetuating the species that posed the beauty of adornment as a weapon of seduction throughout the animal kingdom so that generation operates and life flows in time ... Aesthetic emotion is one of the boosters of life. This I observed before finding out what science confirmed: and it is because I have experienced it in my flesh, in theaters of war or in the hospital in a cancer care unit, or even during beauty workshops organized for unemployed women, which I want to tell you about. At the sight of a beautiful image, whether it is reflected by a real fact or substitute for reality (which the human brain fails to distinguish), the 'aesthetic shock' awakens your hormones of happiness. The very ones that increase your chances of survival. These 4 hormones, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and serotonin are said to be 'happiness' because they are accompanied by pleasant sensations and emotions. Loretta Breuning, Professor of Management at California State University has written a book on this subject 'Our Hormones of Happiness Shown'. If the vision of beauty helps ensure our survival, then without beauty, than would we be? ! It is often said 'without beauty, life would not be worth living'. So, if beauty saves us, I believe it becomes urgent to help save beauty! The beauty of the world, the beauty of humans, the beauty of the landscapes, the beauty in its natural diversity. So, we are beings thirsty for beauty, and we are also beings of images. And I am going to tell you how images oriented my destiny. We are imaginary beings who create the world by the force of our imagination. We create our life by collecting images in which we project ourselves, we decide to embody ourselves. From photographs to photographs I have taken around the world, I take you to explore the power of beauty images and their healing power.
Beauty Saves Us
I am a war reporter. While I am not on these fields every day, my years of presence in various conflicts have marked my way of seeing, thinking, and feeling things. Between 1999 and 2005, on assignment for Paris-Match magazine, I went to Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Syria... I shared the daily lives of fighters and women, experienced their suffering, their strength, observed their behaviors. I learned with them and today, I want to share this teaching. It concerns the place of beauty in existence in general, starting from their testimonies at the heart of war as well as my own experience as a woman. Realizing the importance of beauty in human existence, I developed the project to document it anthropologically through "BEAUTIES", a corpus of photographs, source information, and documentary films fixing its codes and representations within various cultures and social groups. To summarize, I learned three things: - far from being futile or superficial, the beauty around us and self-care are the foundation of any happy existence. - at the heart of conflicts, caring for one's body and appearance is a source of strength, combativeness, and resistance. - beauty must be sought at all times as a self-fulfillment and a reconciliation with the human, the cosmos. It can be seen as a remedy, a collective and individual therapy. It is therefore about attracting this simple human fact into its COSMIC dimension. I also address the hidden dimensions of beauty, the symbolism attached to it, but from the observed and PRAGMATIC symbolism. - What does BEAUTY do to us, deep within? Why? ALL HUMANS need it. Why is it VITAL? Why does it make us more HUMAN? Why is it a UNIVERSAL QUEST? Why is it an OBSESSION, far from being FUTILE or superficial? Today, major luxury cosmetic groups feel disconnected from the deep meaning of beauty because it is COMMODIFIED, marketed, objectified, analyzed in terms of consumption and numbers. However, despite all the science deployed, humans remain FREE, free to make themselves "beautiful" as they see fit. We must decomplex the discourse to realize that there is a true tool for WELL-BEING, a space of FREEDOM.® My experience has led me to join a number of philosophers and especially the thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky, according to which "beauty will save the world".