The Musée Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, is presenting a powerful and thought-provoking exhibition titled "Face à ce qui se dérobe : les clichés de la folie" (Facing what eludes us: the clichés of insanity), running through January 18, 2026. The exhibition centers around a remarkable and disturbing photographic discovery that raises profound questions about ethics, consent, and the representation of mental illness in visual media.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a series of photographs titled "Les Folles" (The Mad Women), discovered in a box within the archives of photographer Robert Demachy (1859-1936). These archives have been preserved at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce since 2004. The haunting images depict women confined in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in the early 1890s, showing them restrained in straitjackets within a courtyard enclosed by imposing railings.
The photographs present deeply unsettling scenes of institutional confinement. Women dressed in black skirts are shown seated on benches or lying directly on the ground, while others are tied to armchairs positioned in front of doors secured with steel bolts. These images stand apart from the rest of Demachy's pictorialist photography archive, presenting viewers with what curators describe as a rare historical document that continuously raises difficult questions.
The discovery has prompted numerous ethical and historical inquiries that form the foundation of the exhibition's exploration. Visitors are confronted with fundamental questions about how Demachy gained access to this psychiatric asylum, his motivations for photographing these institutionalized women, and his intended purpose for the images. The exhibition asks whether his actions were driven by curiosity, voyeurism, a desire for exhibition, or genuine empathy.
More pressing are the ethical questions surrounding the dignity and consent of the photographed subjects. The exhibition examines the rights of these vulnerable women and whether they had any agency in being documented in such a compromising state. These concerns about consent and dignity remain relevant to contemporary discussions about medical photography and the representation of mental illness.
Building from these foundational questions, the exhibition expands its scope to explore the broader relationship between photography and mental illness throughout history. The curators have deliberately focused on the closed world of psychiatric hospitals in France, presenting various ways the photographic medium has been employed in these institutional settings.
While not claiming to be comprehensive, the exhibition aims to make visible the different perspectives and gazes that have been directed toward mental illness through photography. It challenges visitors to question relationships with "the other" and examine the norms and boundaries of visual representation, particularly when it involves vulnerable populations.
The Musée Nicéphore Niépce, located at 28 quai des Messageries in Chalon-sur-Saône, continues to present this significant exhibition through January 18, 2026. Visitors can find additional information through the museum's websites at www.museeniepce.com, www.open-museeniepce.com, and www.archivesniepce.com, or by calling 03 85 48 41 98.
