Passerelle is taking part for the first time in the initiative entitled ‘A photographic journey through Brittany’ which presents a photographic exhibition trail across the whole region every two years. This monographic exhibition by Laura Henno entitled ‘Grande Terre’ (Great Earth) is part of a broader presentation of the ‘Radioscopie de la France’ photographic commission aimed at photojournalists and supported by the National Library of France (BnF). Awarded this bursary, Laura Henno engaged in work that was artistic, committed, poetic and almost sociological, pursuing this in Mayotte from 2013, the date of her first visit to the Comoro Islands, the archipelago to which the island of Mayotte belongs. In her work she shows various ways of resisting oppression; this is precisely what attracted her to Mayotte, following the life of teenage gangs that survive on the coast of this land of contrasts, long forgotten by mainland France.

To understand the artist’s research, we must delve into the history of Mayotte, intrinsically linked to the post-war self-determination and independence movements. The Comoro Islands, then a French protectorate, declared their independence in 1974. The government of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing refused to accept the positive result of the referendum and retained one of the four islands, Mayotte, as an intrinsic part of the French Republic. This occupation became illegal and was condemned by the United Nations. In 1995, visas became compulsory for inhabitants of the Comoros wishing to visit Mayotte. Yet the people of the archipelago had always come and gone between the different islands, both to see family and to work. This geographical division created clandestine immigration that had not existed before, as well as social division, by exacerbating the hatred between rich and poor.

Laura Henno first became interested in the undocumented people of the Comoran community living in Réunion in abject poverty when she had a residency on that island between 2009 and 2012. She could see a parallel between the history of marronage and the clandestine life imposed upon migrants. Marronage was the word used in the colonial era when a slave escaped from a plantation and fled to wild, inaccessible areas. It was later broadened to mean a way of resisting slavery. Her early experience inspired her to spend time in the Comoros, and then in Mayotte, meeting people who took part in the illegal immigration system, including child people-smugglers.

«I bring out the existences and plural voices co-existing on the margins of society and make them resonate. By concentrating on isolated populations, in situations of migration or of survival, I explore the creative dimension of the resistance revealed in them. My use of photography and cinema favours an immersive approach to the communities I follow over several years,» explains Laura Henno, who spent whole months following the same groups of young people. One night, during one of her journeys, she heard whistling and barking around the village she was staying in. She was captivated by this very particular soundscape, as if the supernatural was emerging from the forest. She then tried to make contact with the young men who trained the packs of dogs roaming freely, working with them mainly at night. However, the Comoran people, the great majority of whom are Muslim, have banished this animal from everyday life. Laura Henno sees many symbols in this strange situation including the re-appropriation of a tool of domination: in the old days hunting dogs were used to track escaped slaves on the run, and they are now in the hands of young outcasts. The artist chose to reproduce this incongruous symbiosis between humans and animals. The series of photographs she is showing at Passerelle are therefore the tale, both committed and sensitive, of her extraordinary encounters.