Readers picks #296

Gloria Constant Massa

“I was born with an adventurer’s soul. Travelling is for me a spiritual activity, it leads to introspection”,

says Gloria Constant Massa. After graduating high school, the young woman went on a three-year journey in Australia and Asia. There, immersed in luxuriant landscapes and foreign cultures, she fell in love with photography. “I have realised that I could express myself and create emotions through my images. My work is a mix of landscapes, faces, self-portraits… It is both dark and colourful, melancholic and joyful – sometimes abstract”, she tells us. Inspired by Frida Kahlo, Klimt, Harry Gruyaert, Saul Leiter, Jean-Paul Goude or Man Ray, the artist captures nature with intimacy and “roams bodies as if they were landscapes”. As a loner, she likes to take the time to observe her surroundings to reveal its poetry, and puts on a performance to share her own sensations with her viewers. “I try to capture – beyond the image – the emotion behind it”, she concludes.

© Gloria

Alexandre Desane 

“Tired of hearing stories about black people getting fired because of their “nonregulatory hairdo”, I decided to celebrate frizzy hair. I chose to take pictures of women, men, children outside, without using any artificial light”

, explains Alexandre Desane, a photographer from Haiti born in the Parisian suburbs. Being a victim of racism himself, this self-taught artist decided to do everything in his power to destroy stereotypes based on skin colour. Comedian, director, web developer, photographer, Alexandre Desane works on many projects to tackle racism – like the creation of a mini video game starring a black hero. His black and white series Crépus (Frizzy, ed.) is “fictional and timeless”. “I don’t find it easy to capture something, I need an alignment between a subject that moves me, light and frame”, he says. His inspirations? Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Leonard Freed, Sabine Weiss, Dawoud Bey et Martine Barrat. A contemplative and committed series shot on film.

© Alexandre Desane

Cover picture: © Gloria Constant Massa