The 9th edition of the Rencontres Photographiques de Guyane (French Guiana Photography Encounters) is set to showcase groundbreaking visual narratives centered around the concept of "florestania," asking the provocative question: "What if we succeed?" The biennial, which stands as the only photography festival of its kind in France's overseas departments, has maintained its ambitious mission since 2012 to elevate art photography within French Guiana's cultural landscape while spotlighting both emerging regional artists and internationally acclaimed creators.
The festival's exploration of florestania draws from a revolutionary concept that emerged in the late 1990s within Amazonian socio-environmental movements. This innovative term combines the Portuguese words "floresta" (forest) and "cidadania" (citizenship), proposing a radical reimagining of forests not merely as geographical spaces but as political subjects deserving of rights. The concept advocates for a form of citizenship based not on legal frameworks but on relationships with living beings, ancestors, spirits, and the natural environment—essentially promoting a way of inhabiting the world through interdependence.
According to journalist and theorist Antônio Alves Leitão Neto, florestania carries profound political and ecological implications that challenge conventional thinking about nature and economics. The concept invites society to move beyond extractive frameworks and consider alternative narratives to those imposed by globalized capitalism. It fundamentally questions economic choices, cultural values, and daily practices while rekindling what organizers describe as "a vital force"—a way of being rooted in care, memory, diversity, and active listening.
This philosophical framework resonates particularly strongly in French Guiana, a territory where the Amazon rainforest covers vast expanses and supports exceptional biodiversity. The region's unique cultural mosaic, stemming from more than 80 different ethnic origins, provides fertile ground for exploring how images—both still and moving—can serve as sensitive tools for sharing knowledge, transmitting memories, and collectively shaping possible futures. The festival positions visual art as a medium capable of breaking free from dominant representations that tend to be rational, urban, individualistic, and production-focused.
The 9th edition features an ambitious program curated by Associate Curator Ioana Mello and includes five major group exhibitions developed in collaboration with guest curators from around the world. These exhibitions include "Garden of Imaginations," conceived by Ioana Mello from Brazil; "An Mitan Granbwa," developed by David Démétrius from Guadeloupe; "Archive / Past Archive," created by Éline Gourgues from Metropolitan France; "Do Tuong Linh" from Vietnam; "Reclaiming Roots," conceived by Aude Leveau Mac Elhone from Metropolitan France; and "Persistence," developed by the Brazilian trio of Irene Almeida, Cláudia Leão, and Paula Meire.
A significant component of the festival consists of 33 exhibitions emerging from creative residencies within the Foto Kontré cross-residency program, a collaborative initiative launched by La MAZ in French Guiana working alongside Artistik Rézo Caraïbes from Guadeloupe and La Station Culturelle from Martinique. Notable works from this program include "BetLong" by Thibault Cocaign from French Guiana, "Rien ne reste figé" by Jessica Laguerre from Guadeloupe, and "That's not fair" by Adeline Rapon from Martinique.
The festival also presents two compelling solo exhibitions that directly engage with the florestania theme: "Terre de songes" by Brazilian artist Luiz Braga and "Kalanã Tapélé" by Alex Le Guillou from Metropolitan France. These individual showcases complement the broader festival narrative while offering intimate perspectives on the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
In a groundbreaking expansion of its reach, the festival will present two exhibitions off-site for the first time, with simultaneous showings in Belém, Brazil, as part of COP30 from November 10-21, 2025. The selected exhibitions, "Persistance" by the Brazilian curatorial team of Irene Almeida, Cláudia Leão, and Paula Meire, alongside "Kalanã Tapélé" by Alex Le Guillou, will bring the festival's vision to an international audience during one of the world's most important climate conferences.
The festival's innovative approach reflects its commitment to deploying new exhibition formats with each edition while creating meaningful spaces for dialogue around photographic practice and visual culture. As organizers note, the concept of florestania is not presented as a distant utopia but as a concrete gesture and call to action for listening and transformation. Drawing inspiration from thinkers like Ailton Krenak and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, the festival poses fundamental questions about whether humanity represents a homogeneous entity or an irreducible plurality of interconnected human and non-human existences, suggesting that "peoples, trees, rivers, the invisible" are all inherently linked in a constellation of interconnected worlds.
