This image by Laura Henno has the feeling of a film still; as though a story outside the frame remains unfinished. As such, it’s little surprise to learn that the Paris born-and based artist’s practice largely focuses on filmmaking as well as photography. For several years, Henno has focused her lens on issues of illegal migration, in the Comoros archipelago off Africa’s east coast or in Calais; examining the figures between reality and fictions. A recent body of work however, which she began creating in 2017, has looked at the “lost city” of Slab City in the heart of the Californian desert. Dubbed a “squatter’s paradise”, the site about fifty miles north of the US-Mexico border is named after the concrete slabs that many of the site’s initial residents used to create their off-grid homes, and is seen as both a bastion of freedom and a sunbaked space that’s harsh and unforgiving. Henno looks at the people here, rather than the places, with her sensitive documentation of the religious communities in the area for her series titled Radical Devotion. The works are currently on show as part of extraORDINARY: Photographic perspectives on everyday life at The Institut Pour la Photographie, Lille, until 15 December 2019.
