« Refuges »

"Refuges" is a documentary work divided into three chapters, each centered on a story of rebuilding.

This “residence on earth”—to borrow the title of a collection by Pablo Neruda—is sometimes strange, often difficult, and it is when things get complicated that people demonstrate a will to live that springs from their very core and that, at times, borders on the miraculous.

What I want to convey here is the aftermath of the storm—the moment when one must muster all one’s strength to keep from sinking. How does one rebuild oneself?

Bastien dropped out of school after enduring bullying for a year and a half.

She created an imaginary world, full of glamour and glitter, from inside her trailer—which serves as her safe haven—in the middle of the family farm.

Bastien let me into her world, and we wandered through it together. This magical world stands in stark contrast to the reality around her: farm life, with sheep to milk, cheese to make, pigs to slaughter, backaches, and soaked puppies.

This series is a behind-closed-doors look at family life.

Photography: © Emeline Sauser

« Taking Care »

Entering a hospital is “taking a journey into the human condition.”

The hospital is the heart of life; there, you can discover everything and encounter every kind of situation. It’s a melting pot of new life, death, and a great deal of suffering. And I wanted to capture that feeling it gives everyone—that it is a world unto itself.

A microcosm, yet a mega-body, one might say. The patient’s body, the center of the hospital. A center fragmented into specialties side by side. A body positioned or set in opposition between the caregiver and the patient.

If it is a world, the hospital is like an incredible health and social safety net that we all land on, whoever we are, at one point or another in our lives. A buffer now stretched to its limit by an unprecedented crisis.

Emergency rooms are expected to operate in step with a society that has itself become a society of emergency, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. “Make or break” has become the default option, the prevailing alternative everywhere. Yet deep down, no healthcare worker wants to abandon humanity in their care—for that would be to abandon themselves.

Thus, the care provided in the hospital strikes me as care that society provides to itself, as a whole, far beyond the confines of a healthcare facility. This care cannot be quantified; it is simply not measurable, and that is essentially what my images seek to convey: the presence of bodies in all their states within the flow of life.

Photography: © Marin Driguez

The Deep Play

In the entire southern Beirut region, the state is absent, and infrastructure and security are under the control of Hezbollah and its ally Harakat Amal, their militias and gangs. Abou Hassan Chahrour, also known to his followers as Ali, is the neighborhood's big boss. A gruff, imposing figure, he sets the tempo for daily life in this predominantly Shiite area. He and his clique own weapons, claim to ensure the safety of shopkeepers in exchange for a few bucks, regulate all kinds of trafficking... and when night falls, organize cockfights...

 

Viva Khawa

 

From the Medina of Tetouan ro rhe Barbès district in Paris, passing through the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, follow the path of young Moroccan underaged youngsters in search of another life

 

Exodus

This project chronicles the epic journey of the Venezuelan migrants, towards neighboring Colombia and other Latin American countries. They were compelled to leave because of insecurity and violence, as well as the lack of access to food, medicine and basic services, after losing their income.