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Golds - 2022/2023

Photographs taken on a mining site in French Guiana.

Since 2021, I've been exploring extractive activities in a sensitive way and in the field. French Guiana is the French territory with the most active mines, due to the presence of gold in its soil. Mines can be legal, governed by French legislation, or illegal, with prospecting carried out without any precautions being taken for the people who work there or for the surrounding environment. I was able to witness every stage in the extraction of this gold, which has no value other than monetary in our world. There's a kind of abyss that opens up when you contemplate it, when you talk about it with those who extract it, filter it, purify it, smelt it and sell it. A fascination that is always present, always strange, always profound. The gold is very yellow, very dense, and one tiny nugget already weighs heavily in my palm.
It weighs in my heart, in our hearts. I chose to show in particular the moment when water hoses, earth, stones and bulldozers meet to propel the gold into the sieves and plastic mats that will hold it back.

Supported as part of the major "Radioscopie de la France" commission by the BNF.
Frac Franche-Comté's collection.
Private collection.

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