Immigration stories have interested Fanny Bouyagui for a long time. A few years ago, the Roubaix artist met Afghan, Kurdish and Iraqi immigrants whom she decided to photograph. The images of these men, stuck between the city and the harbour, are presented in the framework of the mobility of the artists she welcomed during the Festival Name, dedicated to electronic music. But her own history invited her to also turn towards Africa. Fifty years earlier, her father travelled from Senegal to France, as do so many young people today. Why are they all ready to come to Europe where no one is expecting them, even though prospects there are clearly harder now than before? The artist went to Agadez in Niger, where future immigrants were preparing their journey. She conducted the investigation there, took photographs, interviewed people and collected everything that seems important to her. These documents constitute the first part of the exhibition Welcome. A year later, wondering what these men and women had become, Fanny Bouyagui went to look for them. With photos in hand, she went to Italy, to the seaside resort of Castel Volturno. It was in this town that the classic immigration itinerary of the period ended up: departure from Agadez, truck, desert, Libya, boat, southern Italy and finally Castel Volturno, a durable transit city after the camps in Lampedusa. During several stays, she observed and attempted to understand how this Mafia-controlled city functioned, where Africans could certainly stay without difficulty, but where they were also exploited and broken. An enclave where laws are no longer worth anything, for the better – tranquillity – and for the worse – prostitution, violence and generalized corruption. In the continuity of her work, Fanny Bouyagui brought back with her stories of these shackled destinies, images of this city both dump and prison, from which immigrants could no longer escape. Because they have to keep sending money and that a return to their home country, often desired, would amount to abandonment. Without pathos or mawkishness, Fanny Bouyagui immerses us in a reality that, although nearly on our doorstep, we are often totally unaware of. A precise and empathetic documentary project whose power is amplified by monumental plastic work that transforms the exhibition visit itself into a crossing. RB
Distribution
conception Fanny Bouyagui
Production
production Art Point M
coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Les Champs Libres Rennes Metropolis, Lille 3000
with the support of the General Council of the North, the Région Nord-Pas de Calais Réseau LEAD, the Town of Lille and the Town of Roubaix