Jury’s choice n°6

Neyla suddenly stopped running. She is stricken by this organic substance that she has never seen before. Sekina comes towards her and explains: “In order to grow, snakes must lose their skin, we call it to slough. In Islam, the snake is a symbol of miracle!” This scene takes place in the Gorges de la Loire, in Saint-Etienne, at the nautical center called Les Révotes. This place belongs to the Eclaireuses and Eclaireurs de France. Every summer, this association of non-religious scouts lends some of their paradise to French Muslim scouts from Lyon. Around thirty young people from 6 to 18 years old gather to live to the beat of picking fruits, froissartage (a scout technic of wood construction) and prayers.

They experiment a parenthesis made of indolence and learning. For most of the kids of Lyon working-class neighborhood, it’s their only summer holidays. For all of them, it’s an unforgettable memory.

Since my student years, spare time is at the core of my work. I graduated for EnSAD Paris in 2017, in photography and video department, thanks to a thesis and a photo series about laziness in cinema. Entitled Acedia, this image series dwelling with laziness as a melancholic and liberating force has evolved and matured as time went by. This series will be edited into a book in 2024 by the Wiity Books editions.

I’m also very much interested in identity and gender issues. I investigated these themes during different travels in Lebanon, Havana, China and also in a series called Femmes sous influence in which I staged women I know. The aim was to illustrate the ambiguous and sometimes hostile connection they have with their own body and their intimacy.

At last, the way I photograph is closely bound to childhood. Between 2017 and 2022, at the Villa Noailles, I animated introductory workshops to photography designed for young people.

Growing up in the Parisian suburbs (Sartrouville to be exact), I did go myself to catechism classes for many years. My parents weren’t churchgoing Catholics however they decided to let my brother and I experiment religion and explore our faith. I keep a peculiar memory of that time: God was then a confident to whom I would tell my wishes, my doubts, and my remorse every night. These moments allowed me to step back with my young life.

With this intimate memory in mind, I spent a first week at the Révotes camp in August 2022. There, I discovered scouting movement. French Muslim Scouts were founded in 1991 during a time where news were dominated by the Gulf war and the civil war in Algeria. Back then, Orient and Occident were opposed in both national and international climates. Creating Muslim Scouts was motivated by the will of reconciliating these oppositions. This association wants to take part in children’s integration while ensuring them a bond with their heritage. Back in the day, Catholic, Jewish and non-religious scouts already existed. Muslim Scouts wanted to follow the same scout tradition dictated by its founder, Robert Baden-Powell, who said:

“Transforming what was an art of learning men how to make war into an art of learning the young how to make peace.”

In August 2023, I was back in the Loire gorges. With these two stays, I discovered the scouts’ life, I understood their activities, their traditions and the structural social interactions which settled this micro-society. Moreover, I learned to know the children and to make them get to know me. From a summer to another, I watched them grow up and I created genuine relationships with them. Thanks to this trustful connection, I was able to witness moments of precious poetry. With photography, I tried to capture collective dynamics and individual behaviors at a crucial age for self-construction. And finally, I get to observe time passing by and stopping, learning and laziness, childhood carelessness and religious solemnity. When Islam’s being stigmatized, I wanted to show the sage place that is the Révotes camp for these kids who are for most of them from an immigrant background.

My love for photography and cinema came from my father who recently passed away. In every portrait he photographed of my mother, my brother and I, he would engrave the tenderness he had for us. I use the same gaze today to create images – and I create a bond with those I record. I always try to reach some sort of intimacy of human experience. Therefore, this project couldn’t have been written if I hadn’t been careful enough to have the association managers’ support and enthusiasm: Zora Merazig who supervises on the ground the stay at the Révotes and Abdelhak Sahli, president of the French Muslim Scouts since 2013.