In France, an estimated 40,000 people are victims of prostitution. A large share are women from West Africa or Eastern Europe, recruited and then exploited by human trafficking networks.
Founded in Grenoble in 2017, the association Solenciel enables people who are victims of prostitution to regain, through employment, a dignified and chosen life. It offers them an employment contract in springboard jobs (cleaning, catering), combined with personalised social and professional support for 24 months: help finding housing, assistance with asylum procedures, psychological support, training… Employment is the starting point of their reconstruction, and the support enables them to settle in durably. Nearly 200 women supported by the association have left prostitution since its creation. Solenciel is today present in Grenoble, Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes and Nanterre.
Carried out from November 2024 to December 2025 in Grenoble, this photographic work explores the long inner path travelled by these women: a story of violence and destruction of their identity, then of patient reconstruction, to heal multiple traumas and become actors in their own lives.
All the outdoor images are taken in the streets of Grenoble, particularly in the areas of prostitution, or in the surrounding region. Some of these women wished to remain anonymous and asked that their portrait not allow them to be recognised. Studio and outdoor work was chosen in order to offer a neutral place. One woman, however, agreed to have her portrait taken in her first apartment in France, the starting point of her new life.
Steve Fiehls
Trained in 2018 at the International Center of Photography (New York), Steve has since devoted himself to social photography projects that explore, through intimate portraits, the questions of fragility and resilience. His first project, Resilient Souls , an 18-month immersion in homeless shelters in New York City, was exhibited in 2019 at the International Center of Photography Museum and published in several American photography magazines. It also gave rise to a book.
Back in France, he works in parallel on several projects, generally over several years. Passeurs , devoted to the end of life, with sensitive portraits of people suffering from very serious illnesses who speak of their relationship with their approaching death, was exhibited at the UN in Geneva in 2022.
Puissantes , which explores the journeys of women entrepreneurs from the Paris region and Marseille, has been exhibited since 2023 in the Hall d'Honneur of HEC, before giving rise to a book published by Hemeria in December 2025.
Les Hérauts de l'Océan , a series of portraits of leading oceanographers and ecologists from around the planet expressing their anger and determination to save the oceans, was exhibited on the Quais de Seine as part of PhotoClimat in September 2025.
Steve currently collaborates with several associations on long-term photo projects, among them the Salvation Army, Jesuit Refugee Services (asylum seekers) and Solenciel.