Retour à La Louvière

I left La Louvière eight years ago. It remains marked by its former flourishing steel and earthenware activities; the city seems to be stuck in a bygone past. Uncoordinated urban development has left the shops in the town centre in difficulty and the redevelopment projects for the industrial sites uncertain. La Louvière is struggling to get on the right track to encourage economic revival and is now looking for a future. 
This documentary photographic work was constructed during long walks where the desire to take a fresh look at key places was combined with wandering and chance encounters. The characters in my photographs are young people taking over the urban space and allowing me to enter a form of intimacy. 
Between distance and proximity, my images express the feeling of someone who finds a place they once inhabited. The majority of the people I knew have now left but returning to the city that I come from is a return to something hidden that continues to link me to it. A kind of love that has lost its way. 

Pauline Vanden Neste is one of the two winners of “Propositions d’artistes” 2021, an annual call for projects initiated by Contretype.

Website: www.paulinevandenneste.com

© Pauline Vanden Neste, Retour à La Louvière, 2021, 46,5 cm x 62 cm, tirage lambda mat / © Pauline Vanden Neste, Retour à La Louvière, 24, 2021, 75 cm x 100 cm, tirage Youtac / © Pauline Vanden Neste, Retour à La Louvière, 2021, 46,5 cm x 62 cm, tirage lambda mat