En route to Behring｜Siberian Travelogue to the Bering Strait

A photobook by French photographer Françoise Huguier, documenting her approximately six-month journey across Siberia in photographs and text. Published in 1993 by Maeght éditeur.

Following "Sur les traces de l'Afrique fantôme," which chronicled her travels in Africa, Huguier journeyed to the far north of Russia. This book records her travels, starting from Paris in April 1992, through Moscow, Salekhard, the Yamal Peninsula, the Taimyr Peninsula, and towards the Bering Strait.

It captures the tundra covered in snow and ice, the Arctic Ocean, fishing ports, industrial areas, small towns and villages, mountain huts, tents, disused forced labor camps, and cemeteries. It also portrays the Arctic environment and the animals that live there, such as reindeer, walruses, whales, and polar bears.

Huguier visited people living in the vast expanse of Siberia—Nenets, Tatars, Dolgans, Nganasan, Inuit, Buryats, Khanty, Russians, Armenians, Lithuanians, and others—documenting their daily lives, including their homes, work, food, travel, and ceremonies. She not only focused on different cultures and lifestyles but also on the clothing of minority groups, which incorporated furs, thick fabrics, embroidery, and ornamentation. The book conveys the society immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ethnic cultures and ways of life that persisted in various regions.

Along with photographs, the book includes diary-style entries noting the dates and locations of the journey. Events witnessed and heard during her travels are vividly described, such as helicopter travel, oil development sites, reindeer herders' encampments, fishing grounds, walrus butchering, and towns with wooden boardwalks. It is a logbook built not by observing distant lands from the outside but by immersing herself in people's lives. It includes a preface by Gérard Lefort.

[Title] En route pour Behring　Notes de voyage en Sibérie
[Japanese Title] En route pour Behring: A Travelogue of Siberia
[Publisher] Maeght éditeur
[Publication Date] December 31, 1993
[Page Count] 152 pages
[Dimensions] Approx. 228 x 288 x 19mm / 1,125g
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] French
[Title Reading] ｱﾝ ﾙｰﾄ ﾌﾟｰﾙ ﾍﾞｰﾘﾝｸﾞ ﾉｰﾄ ﾄﾞｩ ｳﾞｫﾜﾔｰｼﾞｭ ｱﾝ ｼﾍﾞﾘ
[Author/Editor, etc.] Françoise Huguier/Photographs & Text, Gérard Lefort/Preface, Michel Mosnier/Production, Jean-Pierre Vespérini/Design
[Printing] Imprimerie Arte Adrien Maeght
[ISBN] 9782869412361
[Condition] Used【6】Good to Fair (Slight tanning on top edge)
[Accessories] -
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Françoise Huguier (1942-)

Born in Thionville-sur-Marne, France. Photographer.

While active in architecture, journalism, and fashion, she has also documented people's living spaces and social changes through long stays in Africa, Siberia, Southeast Asia, and Russia.

She has published "Sur les traces de l'Afrique fantôme" (documenting her travels in Africa), "En route pour Behring" (crossing Siberia), and "Kommounalka" (photographing communal apartments in St. Petersburg). Approaching the homes, bodies, clothing, work, and private lives of people she encounters on her travels, she photographs places where individual lives and local histories intersect.

< Related Figures >

Gérard Lefort, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Michel Cressole, Maeght éditeur, Polka Galerie