Mystery Street opens and ends with portraits of children. Children who
playing, thinking and watching us. Children in the making. For his
first North American series, French photographer Vasantha Yogananthan
invites us, over the course of a summer, to (re)see the world from a child's perspective. \n \nWith
In this project, Yogananthan returns to documentary photography while
freeing itself from its codes and pushing the limits of the genre. Mystery
Street functions both as a conversation with reality and an escape
towards a multiplicity of possible stories. If this series is mainly
composed of portraits, Yogananthan's favorite genre, it does not seek
to paint a complete picture of New Orleans. Under the burning sun of the
Louisiana, the work is understood as a fable, sketching reality while
taking side roads. It combines observation of behaviors
humans and transfiguration of the ordinary. \n \nFragments of a summer that
extends, Mystery Street shows the bare minimum in terms of place, time
and to space, aware of the weight that figurative elements can carry.
Working to avoid any overdetermination, or to interrupt the process, the
photographer invites viewers to let themselves be guided by their own
imaginary. Mystery Street marks a renewal in the practice of Yogananthan
and takes a look at friendship, at the crossroads of bodies and their
environment.
