Musée de la Photographie

Laura HENNO. Outremonde

In 2017 French photographer Laura Henno launched into a longterm photographic fresco in Slab City. For several weeks each year, she moves into a caravan in this city lost in the heart of the Californian desert.

The last free territory in the US, this off-the-grid camp, which seems to be lost in the middle of nowhere, is home to a community of outcasts or left behind. Some of the inhabitants come here because they enjoy the freedom, while others have ended up here after a life course full of pitfalls.

Not featured on any map, Slab City exists without existing. It got its name from the concrete slabs that remained after a former World War II military base was dismantled in 1956. It was then occupied by soldiers.

Conditions in Slab City are extremely harsh. The heat is intense and water is scarce while fighter planes and rocket fire constantly shatter the silence that is supposed to reign in the desert. Tackling her subject with respect and humanity, Laura Henno has created a documentary fable of this no-man’s-land. By taking a particular interest in the conditions in which the families that are based here live and survive, she takes a comitted look at the world, establishing an intimate relationship with those she photographs in the very special light of the American West.

The Outremonde series was distinguished at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2018, as well as at the Institut de la Photographie in 2019 and Bleu du Ciel in 2020, curated by Michel Poivert.

With the support of the French embassy in Belgium and from the French Institute.
As part of EXTRA, program support for French contemporary creation in Belgium

With the collaboration of Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris-Brussels