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Stuck in Paradise

The series "Songe" by photographer Pauline Vanden Neste is a journey through the streets of Saint-Denis, a urban part of Reunion Island that does not correspond to the collective imagination.

Saint-Denis is the capital and the main economic area of the island, located in the Western Indian Ocean. In 1946, the law of departmentalization changed the political status of the island: from a former colony, it became a French department. Starting in 1950, the repercussions of this shift were felt in the urban centers of La Reunion, their way of life and architecture.

Struggling between the inheritance of its colonial past and a brutal urbanization, Saint-Denis is a fractured territory. The young people Pauline Vanden Neste met there were all torn between the here and the there, between the desire to leave and the desire to stay.

You can follow Pauline Vanden Neste's work on her Instagram account.

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