Hello and Welcome to Paris

Breaking news such as the November 13 attacks in Paris become a jackpot for the corporate media in their race for an ever-wider audience. The repetitive stream of horrifying news shapes the image of terror and converts it into a mass consumption product. Much like advertising, which twists reality in order to sell, the media overexposes negative news in order to gain audience.The photographic series “Hello and Welcome to Paris”, shot in the days after the attacks, explores the media approach to the “Live from Paris” broadcast. It shifts the focus from the events to the key phrases that remain imprinted in our consciousness. The language used by the media is standardized and follows the rules of the editorial routine. How alive is “Live from Paris”? Reporters act with conventional gestures and dramatic intonations, reading pre-fabricated lines written elsewhere, while the segments begin with the obligatory “Hello and Welcome to Paris.” Is this inappropriate greeting an oversight on the part of the editor or a trend in the global news industry?

Nikola Mihov was born in Sofia in 1982. In 2002 he moved to Paris, where he became interested in photography. He graduated in Visual Arts and Photography at the New Bulgarian University in 2011. Since 2008 he has taken part in numerous international exhibitions and festivals. He received the Photojournalism Award of the Union of Bulgarian journalists (2012) and was nominated for the Essl Art Award (2011), and the Zooms award of Salon de la Photo in Paris (2012). His first photobook Forget Your Past (2012) was listed among the best photobooks of the year by The British Journal of Photography, reviewed in FOAM magazine and nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography prize. His last photobook Hello and Welcome to Paris (2016) was nominated for the Dummy Award of the Photobook Festival Kassel.