Ailleurs ici (Elsewhere here)

adminfuoriperimetroMarzo 2024Sarah Leduc

Fotografie di Sarah Leduc

In attesa che il loro destino venga segnato dalle autorità francesi per l’immigrazione, circa 50 migranti sono ospitati in un centro di accoglienza per richiedenti asilo a Lagrasse, un piccolo villaggio nella regione dell’Occitania, nel sud della Francia. Non essendo né a casa né arrivati, non sono in grado di pianificare il futuro, appeso a una decisione amministrativa che potrebbe richiedere anni. In attesa dei documenti che permetteranno loro di rimanere o meno in Francia, le loro vite sono sospese. Nel cuore del villaggio, il Cada è un piccolo pezzo di altrove. Un territorio dove il tempo si dilata e lo spazio si ritrae, dove i giorni sono fatti di noia e le notti di nostalgia. Una torre di Babele dove ognuno tiene per sé il proprio dramma, ma tutti condividono la stessa ambigua attesa, tinta di paura e speranza.

France, Lagrasse, 2022-08-10. A little girl from the Ivory Coast, a resident of a shelter for asylum seekers, hides behind a sheet. About 50 people are housed there while their asylum applications are processed by the French immigration services. NO MARKETING, NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. Invisibles. Behind the sheet, Mariam, 8, from Ivory Coast. With her parents, she spent 16 months in the centre before the whole family's asylum application was rejected in October 2022. But his father preferred to "sleep on the streets rather than go home".
Home - Nouria is from Albania. After two years in the reception centre, she, her husband and their three sons were granted refugee status in October 2022. They were able to stay until they found accommodation.Home - Nouria is from Albania. After two years in the reception centre, she, her husband and their three sons were granted refugee status in October 2022. They were able to stay until they found accommodation.
Dead leaves- "Dead leaves can be picked up by the shovelful. So do memories". Paroles, Jacques Prévert.France, Lagrasse, 2022-08-10. Une demandeuse d'asile albanaise dans son appartement du centre d'accueil pour demandeurs d'asile de Lagrasse. Environ 50 personnes y sont hébergées le temps que la demande soit traitée par les services français de l’immigration. NO MARKETING, NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.
The bazin - Hawa, 15, in her bazin (party dress) on her wedding day. The center is housed in the Clos d'Orbieu, an 18th-century building that has been a bourgeois residence, a convent, a municipal home, a tourist residence and, since the early 1980s, a reception center for asylum seekers (Cada).France, Lagrasse, 2022-08-10. Une jeune fille malienne en vêtement traditionnel devant le centre d'accueil pour demandeurs d'asile de Lagrasse. Environ 50 personnes y sont hébergées le temps que la demande soit traitée par les services français de l’immigration. NO MARKETING, NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.
In transit - Daouda, 7, from Mali. He spent 16 months in the center with his mother and four brothers and sisters before the family was rehoused in social housing in the South of France. The children are getting used to seeing their friends leave from one day to the next. Each goes his or her own way, knowing that they will probably never see them again. In this suspended life, the residents "create attachments without providing anchorage" (C. Schmoll, "Les damnées de la mer").France, Lagrasse, 2022-08-10. Un petit garçon malien joue dans les escaliers du centre d'accueil pour demandeurs d'asile de Lagrasse. Environ 50 personnes y sont hébergées le temps que la demande soit traitée par les services français de l’immigration. Photographie par Sarah LEDUC / Hans Lucas. NO MARKETING, NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.
The cradle - The Lagrasse Cada is reserved for families. The majority of mothers live there alone with their children.France, Lagrasse, 2022-08-10. Chambre du centre d'accueil pour demandeurs d'asile de Lagrasse. Environ 50 personnes y sont hébergées le temps que la demande soit traitée par les services français de l’immigration. NO MARKETING, NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.
Spiderman - Benny, a little Congolese boy, plays in the yard dressed as Spiderman. "I'm a hero, Mom, I'm going to save you," he shouts to the window of the apartment where he lives with his mother and his severely disabled little sister.
Empty - The center's calendar of activities is hopelessly empty. At the time of Covid-19, group activities were suspended and not subsequently rescheduled. "The problem is that when you don't do anything, you think too much," one resident confides to me.
Messi's haircut - Sylejmon, 11, from Albania, gets his hair cut by a neighbor. He wants "Messi's haircut". Residents provide each other with small daily services: charging telephone units, cooking, hairdressing, etc.
Community service - Nurieh sweeps the Cada entrance. All residents must participate in the upkeep of the common areas.
"Red light, green light" - A little Somali boy plays in the courtyard of the center.
Ivy - Ivy is an exceptionally vigorous plant, growing quickly and adapting to any environment. Here, it grows on the barred windows of an Iranian couple who like to have this "little bit of green" at their window.
The stain - Massoud, a little Somali boy, stands in front of the traces of a yoghurt that has burst in the yard.
Laundry - A scene from daily life in the Cada corridors. Residents share washing machines, a source of recurring conflict. Life in a reception center for asylum seekers generates a new anxiety: cohabitation and proximity. This concern is at the heart of all the mothers' testimonies, complaints are frequent and conflicts are often interpreted in terms of "cultural differences".
Sad 16 - A Turkish teenager moping on his bed. For the teenagers, life in the village is terribly boring: they complain about the lack of activities, the lack of transport, the lack of friends.
The race - Ahmed, an Algerian boy, races down the monumental staircase whose banister is a listed monument. The children have transformed the center into a vast playground.
The swing - Sqelkim, a 6-year-old Albanian boy, swings on a fire hose installed on the upper floors.
Take the road - An old motorcycle has been lying in the center's corridors for years, its flat tire has never been repaired. The children spend their time riding on it, imagining they're taking to the open seas.
One foot in, one foot out - Maryam, 36, from Somalia: "We don't know when we arrive, we don't know when we leave. We can't feel at home here".
The Christmas tree. A plant has been painted gold to resemble a Christmas tree. Families follow traditions that are not necessarily their own, but these celebrations punctuate the year and bring a little comfort to residents.
Little miss sunshine - Maryam, 8, Ivory Coast. She takes a break in the sunshine on the Cada's monumental staircase. Her dream? To have a room just for her, "with a desk! And that her little brother, who has stayed behind, might one day join them in France.
The mask - Salimata gets her make-up done by a neighbor on her wedding day, in October 2022. René Ortega, the Socialist mayor who married the couple, wished them a "long and happy life in France". Salimata secretly hoped that this marriage celebrated on French soil would help her asylum application. This was not the case. The family's application was rejected a month later.
"We, women” - Swad, single mother of three. She arrived from Algeria in September 2022. "We women have no rights in our country", she explains with the help of google trad. Although she feels safe in the Cada, the isolation weighs heavily on her, and she is having a very hard time with the separation from her elderly parents, whom she left back home: "maybe I'll never see them again".
French flag - Mariam does her homework after school and tries to memorize a poem. Behind her on the wall, a blue, white and red flag. The colors of France. The colors of hope.
The ribbon - In the shared washing machine room. The machine room and courtyard are the only communal areas in the Cada.
Inconsistencies - Portrait of Maryam, 36, Somalia. This mother is housed with her eight children. Only her youngest daughter has been granted refugee status, so the rest of the family can stay as accompanying persons. Immigration services inconsistencies...
Godot - A chair in the center's corridors. We dry clothes there. We make phone calls from it. You climb on it, you play on it, you take a break on it. We wait for Godot.
Mariam's dream - Mariam is 10 years old, she is from Mali, and has the dreams of her age: to have a cell phone, her own room, less homeworks. She'd also like her father to join her and her four brothers and sisters, but he's "somewhere...”.
Kadi's prayer - Kadiatou, known as Kadi, came alone with her five children from Mali. Her days are punctuated by prayer and the hope of leaving for the Paris region to meet up with her friends back home. "In Africa, we're always at each other's houses. Here, it's every man for himself, and that's sad," she laments.
"Elsewhere, far from here!" - Nedjma, Somalia: "When I arrived here, I couldn't stop crying...The village is very small, I didn't know anyone. I imagined myself...somewhere else".