Description

La Colonia documents the social spaces of Central America — those refuge-like third places within a society marked by endemic urban violence. Rather than turning his camera toward this brutality, so often depicted head-on in photojournalism, photographer Valérian Mazataud focuses on the places where people can still gather and find a measure of relief: gated residential neighbourhoods, shopping malls, and public parks where collective presence itself becomes a form of protection.

The project originated from simple walks in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with Baku, the dog accompanying the photographer and a discreet figure guiding the viewer through the photographic narrative. Known throughout the neighbourhood, the animal opens the doors to the everyday life of Colonia Primavera — a fortified urban village surrounded by high walls and guarded by armed security personnel. There, middle-class families attempt to preserve a sense of tranquillity at a distance from the turmoil outside.

As the pages unfold, the reader accompanies the photographer in discovering this singular place and other spaces serving similar functions. The images reveal a reality in which calm remains precarious despite surveillance systems, physical barriers, and the invisible boundaries that shape the city. Accompanied by a text by writer and artist Sophie Bertrand, the book offers a sensitive reflection on fear, withdrawal, and new forms of urban coexistence.

Co-published by VU, centre de diffusion et de production de la photographie and Les Éditions du Renard, La Colonia unfolds as a narrative and poetic journey in which animal presences, fences, and barbed wire become recurring signs of a territory shaped by the tension between openness and confinement.

Stamped soft cover
Exposed binding
67 color photographs
Texts in french, english and spanish
Offset printing