The 9th edition of the Rencontres Photographiques de Guyane (French Guiana Photography Festival) continues its mission to elevate artistic photography within the cultural landscape of French Guiana. As the only biennial photography festival in France's overseas departments, the event has maintained an unwavering ambition since 2012 to showcase both emerging regional artists and internationally renowned creators while promoting innovation in exhibition design and fostering dialogue around photographic practice.
This year's festival centers on the concept of "florestania," asking the provocative question "What if we could achieve it?" The term, born in the late 1990s within Amazonian socio-environmental movements, combines the Portuguese words "floresta" (forest) and "cidadania" (citizenship). This concept challenges viewers to reconsider forests not merely as geographical spaces but as full political subjects worthy of rights and recognition.
Since the 19th century, photography has amazed audiences by revealing invisible details of the world around us. From Muybridge's decomposed horse gallop sequences in 1887 to the iconic Earth-from-Moon photograph of 1968, certain images have revolutionized our perception of ourselves and our place in the universe. Born alongside the Industrial Revolution, photography developed parallel to the scientific, social, and technical changes that shaped modernity.
However, the medium quickly became a tool of capture, subject to extractive and quantitative logic that mirrors the dominant dynamics of capitalism. Against this hegemonic history of imagery, the festival chooses to explore florestania as an alternative vision. As journalist and theorist Antonio Alves Leitao Neto explains, florestania carries a profoundly political and ecological vision that invites us to think about nature outside extractivist frameworks and to envision our existence through narratives other than those imposed by globalized capitalism.
Florestania proposes citizenship based not on law but on relationships with living beings, ancestors, spirits, and environments – a way of inhabiting the world through interdependence. This concept questions our economic choices, cultural values, and daily practices while reviving a vital force rooted in care, memory, diversity, and listening. The philosophy challenges whether we are a homogeneous humanity or an irreducible plurality of human and non-human existences, all interconnected, as suggested by thinkers Ailton Krenak and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.
This reflection takes on particular resonance in French Guiana, a territory predominantly covered by Amazonian rainforest of exceptional biological richness and marked by a mosaic of cultures from more than 80 different origins. In this context, still and moving images become sensitive tools for sharing knowledge, transmitting memories, and collectively developing possible futures. Artists and curators from around the world contribute multiple visual narratives nourished by their roots, cultures, and visions.
The festival features five collective exhibitions designed in collaboration with invited curators: "Jardin des imaginaires" (Garden of Imaginaries) conceived by Ioana Mello from Brazil; "An Mitan Granbwa" by David Démétrius from Guadeloupe; "Archive / Past Archive" by Éline Gourgues from mainland France; an exhibition by Do Tuong Linh from Vietnam; "Reprendre Racines" (Reclaiming Roots) by Aude Leveau Mac Elhone from mainland France; and "Persistance" by Irene Almeida, Cláudia Leão, and Paula Meire from Brazil.
Additionally, the festival presents 33 exhibitions from creative residencies through the cross-residency program Foto Kontré, initiated by La MAZ in collaboration with Artistik Rézo Caraïbes from Guadeloupe and Station Culturelle from Martinique. These include "BetLong" by Thibault Cocaign from French Guiana, "Rien ne reste figé" (Nothing Remains Fixed) by Jessica Laguerre from Guadeloupe, and "That's not fair" by Adeline Rapon from Martinique.
Two individual exhibitions resonate with the festival's theme: "Terre de songes" (Land of Dreams) by Luiz Braga from Brazil and "Kalanã Tapélé" by Alex Le Guillou from mainland France. For the first time, two of the ten exhibitions will be presented simultaneously in Belém, Brazil, as part of COP30 from November 10-21, 2025, including "Persistance" and "Kalanã Tapélé."
Through these diverse works, artists invite audiences to break free from dominant representations that are rational, urban, individualistic, and productivist. Instead, they trace alternative paths founded on empathy, connection, coexistence, and spirituality. In this framework, florestania is not a distant utopia but a concrete gesture, a call for listening and transformation that recognizes no center or periphery, only a constellation of interconnected worlds.
