The room is almost empty. Tables form an imperfect circle, chairs are carefully arranged, as if a meeting had just ended—or was about to begin. At the center, a few white cups wait. Nothing seems to be happening, and yet everything is there: anticipation, and time stretching out. It is in spaces like these that “Placed Youth” begins, an exhibition that shows nothing exceptional, except the everyday lives of young people placed in IPPJ institutions (Public institutions for the protection of youth) in Wauthier-Braine and Saint-Servais en Wallonie, in Belgium.
The project is led by La Nombreuse ASBL, an organization that has been working for several years at the intersection of social support, education, and artistic creation. Here, photography is not a pretext; it is a tool for dialogue. “The idea is not to make ‘beautiful images,’ but to create a space where something can be expressed,” explains Éloïse Brunet, a photographer, improvised educator, and co-initiator of the project.
In IPPJ institutions, days are governed by strict schedules, supervised movement, and precise rules. Young people often arrive there after turbulent paths marked by rupture, violence, or instability. “These are adolescents whose voices are constantly confiscated,” recalls Romain Cavallin, also a photographer. “They are always spoken for by others: the justice system, the administration, reports. Very rarely by themselves.”
Photography enters quietly. A camera circulates, passed from hand to hand. Images are made in corridors, bedrooms, common rooms, the gym, the courtyard. A young girl sits with her head down, phone in hand. Another whispers something in her friend’s ear, like a secret too heavy to keep alone. Nearby, a birthday cake placed on a table, candles lit, waits for someone to blow them out. Lying in the grass among daisies, a boy dreams of somewhere else. These are ordinary moments—but here, every detail matters.
“When you take a photo, you choose what you show,” says Yanis, one of the participants. “Usually, decisions are made for us. Here, we decide.” His words often return in the mouths of the photographers who accompanied the group: choosing, framing, saying no. Yanis also speaks about silence. “There are things I didn’t want to explain—just to show.”
Some images remain without comment. Others are accompanied by brief, handwritten phrases. There are photographs taken by the young people themselves, using cameras and flashes, as part of self-photography workshops. And then there are letters. A correspondence develops between young people placed in IPPJ institutions and those living in care homes. “It was a dialogue between two placement structures,” explains Romain Cavallin. “They discovered each other through writing. There were six or seven exchanges.” “It’s not a judicial testimony. It’s a trace,” insists Éloïse Brunet.
Éloïse Brunet and Romain Cavallin also speak of slow, fragile work. “We never force an image,” explains Romain Cavallin. “There are days when no one wants to photograph. And that’s perfectly fine.” Trust is built over time, sometimes in shared silence. “This project doesn’t ‘fix’ anything. It accompanies.”
In some photographs, places often take precedence—along with close-ups. A large empty table photographed head-on. An overly lit corridor. A single chair against a wall. An insect in the courtyard. The fence that separates from freedom. These spaces speak as much as faces. They tell of waiting, repetition, confinement. “Places speak a lot for them,” notes Éloïse Brunet. “Sometimes more than words.”
Then there are moments of breathing. Laughter off-frame. A shared smile. A gaze deliberately turning away from the camera. Sékou, another participant, describes photography as an escape. “When you take a photo, you’re elsewhere—even if you’re still here,” he says. This tension runs through the entire exhibition: being present while dreaming of the outside.
For Sékou, the experience quickly goes beyond simple technical learning. “I think the justice system took away certain rights to remind us of our duties,” he says. “But this work gave us back the right to create, to give form to what we feel every day.” The workshops, initially planned for three weeks, are extended. “We opened up to them, and they entered our intimacy.”
Photography then becomes a journey. “They brought books, we looked at them, took examples, and started staging images,” Sékou recalls. “Today, I’m very happy with the form it has taken. It’s not the end of the process—it’s a birth.” When asked whether it made him want to pursue photography later on, he hesitates, then simply replies: “Not a job, but a passion.” Another sentence follows naturally. “I fell in love,” he says. He is talking about photography—but also about something else. “For a long time, we lacked love. We shut down our feelings. Doing this photography module allowed us to fall in love again. With life.”
This may be where the heart of Placed Youth lies. Not in a discourse on reintegration or repair, but in a shared experience, built workshop after workshop. “Our goal is to make photography with people who don’t have access to it,” Romain Cavallin reminds us. In these images, letters, and voices, there is never judgment—only a suspended moment, where looking, writing, and staging allow one to briefly regain control of one’s own narrative. La Nombreuse accompanies this process without imposing an aesthetic framework. “We don’t correct the images,” emphasizes Éloïse Brunet. “They are what they are. Like them.”
The IPPJ remains in the background, never explained head-on. The images show neither sanctions nor control mechanisms. They tell what happens in between: long stretches of time, the solitude of a bedroom, the importance of a birthday celebrated despite everything. “We wanted to avoid any form of voyeurism,” explains Romain Cavallin. “These young people are not subjects. They are authors.”
“Placed Youth”can be seen until February 21, 2026 at Le Pianofabriek, 35 rue du Fort, 1060 Saint-Gilles, Brussels, as part of Photo Brussels Festival 2026.
