During five successive years, this photographer from Bordeaux, France, followed kids in summer camps in the south of France, documenting the life of the boys and girls, under her lens: there is freedom, laughers, dramas too. Her black and white pictures are reminiscent of Sally Mann’s. Nahia Garat talks about her work in a poetical way.
Our first perceptions are tucked in deep in our childhood. The sentiments of loneliness, misunderstanding, exclusion, of happiness and discovery that we feel in our daily life have been rooted early. Summer camp is part of a collective memory that bear witness to the great discoveries, such as meeting the other, the others, the group. Islada gives to see though portraits and everyday moments what each of us discovered in our first years, autonomy and friendship. This documentary series was shot with film with light medium format (Yashica and Rolleiflex). The camera allows to look at the other eye to eye and gives a mirror effect which is more than useful to the spirit of this work. The work is in black and white, the texture and the grain of the images remain velvety, images are dense with a soft contrast. The Art point of view gives a feeling of freedom detached from reality, to create a new one totally subjective, linked to souvenirs. Islada means « The reflection » in basque.
Nahia Garat
Nahia Garat was born in 1992 in Bayonne. She regularly works for communication agency and for the press. She lives in Bordeaux and works in Nouvelle Aquitaine, France.
