OPEN CALL
OPEN CALL
OPEN CALL
FOR WOMEN
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Constance Proux
Amélie Testenoire Lafayette
Eloïse Brunet
05 – 19.12.2025
06 – 18.01.2026
EXHIBITION – Germaine Van Parys Award 2025
We are delighted to announce the opening of the exhibition of the laureates of the Germaine Van Parys Award, a prize initiated by the City of Brussels to support women photographers and encourage the development of new documentary projects.
This exhibition brings together works created over ten months of guidance and mentorship, during which the artists developed a personal project.
Featured projects:
Constance Proux, Laureate of the Germaine Van Parys Award 2025
Constance Proux developed her project in a language school in the heart of Brussels, where she has been learning Dutch for two years. Throughout the year, she met regularly with a group of students, tirelessly repeating the same words, syllables and sounds. Despite a limited shared vocabulary, they exchanged intimate stories. The participants, with diverse and sometimes complex life paths, explored together — notably through staged situations — how we try to understand one another, make ourselves understood, and how language learning shapes and transforms us.
Eloïse Brunet, Laureate of the Discovery Award
Eloïse Brunet’s project developed within a care home for young girls who had been removed from their family environment. Her work explores how to translate their daily lives, perspectives and aspirations into images while protecting their anonymity. Together, they devised ways to bypass the absence of visible faces, revealing instead the complicity, intimacy and trust that gradually grew between them.
Amélie Testenoire-Lafayette, Laureate of the Discovery Award
Amélie Testenoire-Lafayette explores representations of masculinity by reversing the power dynamics traditionally associated with the male gaze. In a context marked by the rise of masculinist movements, her work imagines a softer, more serene masculinity, far from dominant codes of virility, by creating images with her models that reconcile vulnerability, intimacy and new possibilities of representation.
Information about the exhibition
05–19.12.2025
06–18.01.2026
Free entrance
Tue–Sun: 13:00 – 17:30
Opening – 4 December
18:30 – 21:00: Opening in the presence of the artists
GERMAINE VAN PARYS AWARD
Constance Proux wins the Germaine Van Parys 2025 Award
The Grand Prix goes to photographer Constance Proux. With this €8,000 grant, she will undertake a collaborative project with students from a language school based in the center of Brussels.
Photographer and lecturer at Esa le 75, Constance Proux (FR,1991) lives and works in Brussels. Her work is regularly exhibited at festivals, galleries and museums across Europe.
The Discovery Award
The three mentoring grants were awarded to Eloïse Brunet (graduating from the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles in 2024), Nina Robert and Amélie Testenoire-Lafayette (both graduating from La Cambre in 2022).
The culmination of their work will also be exhibited at the Géopolis center in late 2025.
GERMAINE VAN PARYS.
ABOUT
ABOUT
ABOUT
At the initiative of the Alderwoman for Culture of the City of Brussels, the Germaine Van Parys Award returns for a second edition. By providing funding for women working in photography, this award aims at raising the profile of their work. The goal is to make up for the lack of diversity in the profession.
Heiress to a strong documentary tradition, Belgian photography has for too long been the privilege of a few. The lack of women’s stories in the media, museums and galleries has perpetuated gender inequalities. The Belgian photography sector, which is particularly rich in terms of training, now reflects another reality: the number of women studying or working as photographers is constantly rising. The winners of the Germaine Van Parys 2024 Award, Marie Sordat and Cécili Matureli (student prize), bear witness to this.
To take things even further, the Germaine Van Parys Award is taking on a new form this year, offering a production grant and three mentoring grants. This new formula makes it possible both to support an original project by an established artist and to support a new generation of women photographers, by enabling them to explore their documentary approach in greater depth through a ten-month programme.
The first grant, the Germaine Van Parys Award, is for professional photographers. The Découvertes (Discovery) Award is aimed at young graduates in photography from Brussels’ schools.
This award allows projects to be built over the long term. A time needed to create a link with our subject, to understand and explain the challenges of the world around us. It also allows for different viewpoints and work towards greater recognition of women photographers within the profession.
By rewarding women photographers whose work renews approaches and questions the role of the image, this award aims to support an essential change that is taking place today.
GERMAINE VAN PARYS.
categories
categories
categories
THE GERMAINE VAN PARYS
AWARD
A production grant of EUR 8,000 for an original documentary project by a professional photographer, lasting 10 months.
The theme must be related to the City of Brussels.
THE GERMAINE VAN PARYS
AWARD
Three graduates from schools in the 1000 Brussels area will be selected and given support to carry out their photography projects.
Open subject.
The two awards will be the subject of a joint exhibition at the end of 2025 in Brussels.
Timeline
Timeline
Timeline
1
SUBMISSION
From September 30
until December 15
2
WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT
2025 January
3
PROJECT REALISATION
AND MENTORSHIP
From January
until November 2025
4
EXHIBITION IN BRUSSELS
End of 2025
1
SUBMISSION
From September 30
until December 15
2
WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT
2025 January
3
PROJECT REALISATION
AND MENTORSHIP
From January
until November 2025
4
EXHIBITION IN BRUSSELS
End of 2025
MARIE SORDAT
RULES
RULES
RULES
CONSULT THE RULES
pdf
GERMAINE VAN PARYS.
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
WHO WAS GERMAINE VAN PARYS?
Germaine Van Parys was born in Saint-Gilles on 18 April 1893. She became the first woman press photographer in Belgium. With her curious personality, young Germaine tried her hand at the piano, painting and embroidery. Her parents sent her to the École des Arts et Métiers in Brussels. A few years later, she married press photographer Félix Van Parys and became a photographer in her own right. Her report on the return of King Albert I to Brussels in 1918 opened up opportunities for her at the newspaper Le Soir. Germaine Van Parys thus became the first woman to achieve the status of photojournalist.
In 1929, she co-founded the “Association générale des reporters photographes de la presse belge”. She also collaborated with the Parisian magazine “L’Illustration”, travelled to the Belgian Congo and made a name for herself both with her news photos and her ability to capture everyday life.
During the Second World War, Germaine helped the Resistance by forging identity documents. She also became a war correspondent for the Allied Forces in 1945. An independent woman, she was also one of the rare entrepreneurs of her time. In 1956, she set up the Van Parys press agency and worked with her niece Odette Dereze, also a photographer. In the 1950s and 1960s, Germaine and Odette documented current events: the 1958 World’s Fair, the beginnings of civil aviation, sporting events, royal news, as well as certain news items. Germaine also covered the upheavals in her home town during the 1960s, leaving behind a considerable resource on Brussels at the time.
She also became the “queen of the portrait”, with shots of the royal family, Winston Churchill, Joséphine Baker and Albert Einstein.
Despite suffering from cancer in 1966, she continued to run her agency. She did not stop until 1980, after a stroke. She then set about cataloguing her extensive archives. Germaine Van Parys died in 1983, leaving behind an admirable body of work.
SUBMIT
SUBMIT
SUBMIT
Copyright © 2024 Germaine Van Parys Award/ © 2024 Marie Sordat (detail)
Copyright © 2024 Germaine Van Parys Award/ © 2024 Marie Sordat (détail)