Certainly maybe
A return to my native country 50 years after its independence, 20 years after leaving it. How do I photograph it without being too obvious? The Africa we’re used to seeing in the West is not the Africa I know. I returned to Gabon as it emerges from 40 years of life under the same political regime, and at an important moment in its history: the 50th anniversary of its independence.
It seems both foreign and familiar to me; after all, this is my home! Everything resonates: the laterite covering the city and our lungs with red dust, the muggy air, the incessant horns, rugged roads, the feeling of 50 years of independence, the sentence people say out loud constantly to reassure themselves: “We are together.”
Beyond color, the subject of this series is homecoming, the search for a part of oneself left behind in exile. I walk through the city, rediscovering it, losing myself between reality and memories in a time suspended between yesterday and today.
Sophie Chausse was born in Libreville in Gabon, where she grew up. Her family fled to France when she was 14. A graduate of the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts, today she works on photography and film projects in France, the United States and Africa.
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