Ego tourism

A relaxed body rests in a hammock stretched beneath a wooden archway engraved with "ZANZIBAR – Karibu Beach Resort." In the background, a very different scene: four men and a young boy bustle around a cart pulled by a zebu, at low tide.

The photograph, captured on the coast of Zanzibar and selected by 1X.com , directly exposes a brutal visual cohabitation between two worlds : that of tourist idleness and that of daily work. The two intersect without ever meeting.

A holiday setting in a lived-in area

The hammock here becomes a symbol of groundless tourism , suspended in a fantasized elsewhere. It is literally framed, designated, over-signified. Just behind, the laborious gestures of the local inhabitants are organized in the shadow of seaside carefreeness.

This tension is the very heart of the image. No comment is necessary: ​​the documentary frontality is enough to show how the postcard image can contain, in the background, the erasure of those who actually experience the place.

A photograph from the Ego-tourism series

This image is part of the Ego-tourism series, which explores the excesses of a self-centered journey , where the Elsewhere becomes a simple backdrop, and the inhabitants peripheral silhouettes.

The series questions the posture of the consumer tourist , who passes through places without ever inhabiting them, and transforms the world into a backdrop for his own story.