Born in Paris, Elene Usdin graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 1996 with a degree in graphic design and moving image. She made her debut as a painter on Léos Carax’s film Pola X. Winner of the Prix Picto de la Jeune Photographie de Mode in 2006, she joined the Esther Woerdehoff gallery for a time. Claude Nori and Éditions Contrejour published her first monograph in 2013. She collaborates with Compagnie Decouflé, La Fondation Lafayette Anticipations and Opéra du Rhin. In 2020, Wayne State University Press published her photographs of Detroit. In 2021, Éditions Sarbacane published her first graphic novel, René́.e aux bois dormants, which was awarded the ACBD Grand Prix de la Critique, the Prix des Libraires du Québec, and the Prix Artémisia. In 2022, she exhibited at Galerie Barbier in Paris, the Festival BD in Bastia, the Festival Étonnants Voyageurs in Saint-Malo, and the Musée Royal d’Art et Histoire in Brussels.

Elene was writing and illustrating “Detroit, Roma” -- a musical graphic novel project in collaboration with Joseph Siran aka Boni. Fleeing their hometown, two teenage girls cross the United States from North to South. Their escape becomes an opportunity for introspection, and the random path they follow leads them to pay homage to their respective mothers. The narrative is divided between the two friends’ past, told through the dark drawings in Beckie’s logbook, and the present, painted in a faded range of colors reminiscent of polaroids. Finally, the comic strip that Beckie is writing and that we are reading is revealed. Meta writing, in which we discover the reasons for their flight and what binds them beyond appearances. But also the tragic fate of Gloria, a young debutante with shattered dreams, who left Rome and ended up in Detroit. The polluted water scandal that erupted in the fading industrial city in 2017 is the backdrop to these special stories.

https://www.eleneusdin.com/

https://www.instagram.com/elene_usdin_drawing/

https://www.instagram.com/elene_usdin_photo/

Elsa MROZIEWICZ is a multi-disciplinary artist : illustrator, pop-up engineer, director and writer. She graduated from H.E.A.R. in Strasbourg. Her works invite the audience to dive into dreamlike and poetic universes with mythological influences, often innovating around the book format arousing surprise.

Elsa has created animated and illustrated artist’s books and has been published in France, Germany and distributed internationally. Her artist’s books have been exhibited in museums, fairs and media libraries, for example in the USA at New York Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, in Prague at the B1 Centre for contemporary design, in Italy at the Milan Design Week, or in France at the Malraux Media Library in Strasbourg.

In 2013, she won the Best Interactive Book Prize at the Art Book Wanted in Prague for her sculpture book “Cannes 08.09”. Her giant pop-up book enhanced with Baobab was shortlisted for the Movable Book Society’s Meggendorfer for Artist Books 2023 Prize (USA) and is displayed at the Goodplanet Foundation in Paris.

Elsa has published several children’s books, including “Peek-a who?” and “Peek-a who too?” with Minedition, that have received acclaim from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, News & Observers, even awards. She also works on animated films (animation for the documentary “Mauvais Sang”) and collective transmedia projects such as “Arbres-Mondes” (shortlisted at the 2022 Bologna Children’s Book Fair for the Bolognaragazzi Crossmedia Award).

Elsa was developing augmented sound murals with author Cécile Palusinski relating to environmental protection: «The Universal Forest» about endangered animals (supported by the Michalski Foundation), «Flying High» about migratory and endemic birds (laureate of Villa Swagatam in India), and «Floating Cities» focusing on India about ocean protection (Tango and Scan 2023 laureate), which take a cross-disciplinary approach to the arts, combining photography, podcast, illustration, animation, digital, comics, sound composition and AR. At the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) held in Nice in June 2025, Elsa, alongside Cécile, presented Floating Cities, their thought provoking artistic project advocating for environmental awareness.

https://www.elsamro.com/

https://www.villes-flottantes.com/

https://www.instagram.com/elsa_mroziewicz/

Fabien Toulmé studied Civil Engineering and Urban Planning. After a decade abroad, he returned to France in 2008 to pursue comics. His notable works include “Ce n’est pas toi que j’attendais” (2014), which explores his daughter Julia’s unexpected Down syndrome and “Hakim’s Odyssey” (2018-2020) which won many literary prizes.

In 2022, he started the comic strip series “Reflections of the World” that explores a theme which connects people from geographically distant places. After reporting on social struggles and how we work, the third volume of the series will be dedicated to relationships: the way couples meet, live together and, eventually, separate.

In his series of graphic novels Reflets du monde (Reflections of the world), Fabien Toulmé travels to different countries, bringing his readers with him on a journey of discovery and ‘reflections on social topics’. His method combines sensitive observation, interviews and reportage drawn to portray – with empathy – the intimate and the collective.

In the first volume, he explored the way people approach work-life balance in 3 countries (Korea, the Comoros and the USA). The second graphic novel deals with activism where he travels to Brazil, Lebanon and Benin to meet those fighting oppression and trying to bring about societal change.

During his Bangalore residency, Fabien was working on his third volume in this series. Having previously explored themes such as labour conditions and social struggles, he was looking into how couples form, live together and separate. The third novel will be about “love and the couple”. As part of his ongoing research, he immersed himself in the city to document the many forms that romantic relationships can take in a society undergoing rapid cultural and social change.

https://www.lesdessinateurs.com/index.php

https://www.instagram.com/fabientoulme/