[…] "In a jungle, six boys cross a rough clearing. Between and around them, rustling vegetation; as one enters it, the damp green deafens to the point of silence. The first boy is lost against a sombre foreground, all that shines in contrast is an earring, his white nails, and light dotted against his black skin, matching his clothes. Farther away, the last boy fades behind the white smoke of a smouldering fire. They are together but separate, they look at each other without making eye contact, their consciousness already travelling towards a place they have yet to reach.
Raw earth, again, covered by a carpet of moss and dried, broken grass. Stripped saplings. And two men, one half lying down, the other farther away, standing with his back to us. A sky that is almost absent, thick vegetation. Blue stains: a plastic
tarpaulin on which the man stands, the other man’s coat, a half-open umbrella in the background, and there, some balled-up clothes. One man watches, the other hesitates, both fixed in the shadow of branches. This man has slept on the tarp, the other perhaps also. In the ‘jungle’ of Calais or on the banks of the Tiber or … Cut voice-over." […]
Raw earth, again, covered by a carpet of moss and dried, broken grass. Stripped saplings. And two men, one half lying down, the other farther away, standing with his back to us. A sky that is almost absent, thick vegetation. Blue stains: a plastic
tarpaulin on which the man stands, the other man’s coat, a half-open umbrella in the background, and there, some balled-up clothes. One man watches, the other hesitates, both fixed in the shadow of branches. This man has slept on the tarp, the other perhaps also. In the ‘jungle’ of Calais or on the banks of the Tiber or … Cut voice-over." […]
Extract text Raphaëlle Stopin
En collaboration avec : le Château d’Eau, Toulouse ; la galerie Le Lieu, Lorient ; Image/imatge, Orthez ; le Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France, Pontault-Combault ; l’Artothèque, Vitré ; l’Artothèque du réseau des médiathèques de La Roche-sur-Yon Agglomération ; le Centre Régional de la Photographie du Nord Pas-de-Calais, Douchy-les-Mines ; le Pavillon Vendôme, Clichy ; la galerie Les filles du calvaire, Paris
Laura Henno (born 1976) is a French photographer. She lives and works in Lille. After studying photography at the National School of Visual Arts of La Cambre in Brussels, she joined the National Studio of Contemporary Arts Fresnoy to continue his photographic work there and made his first short film in 2003. She also works in the artists’ collective Qubo Gas. In 2007, she received the Discovery Award Rencontres d’Arles.
Yves Brochard, teacher, art critic and independent curator.
Raphaëlle Stopin is an art critic and co-artistic director for Hyeres Festival photography.