Ilona and Maddelena

July 2015, Montpellier, Gély neighbourhood, Unit 26.

It is here, in this working class neighbourhood of about 2100 inhabitants, close to the center of Montpellier (south of France) that I first met Ilona and Maddalena, two sisters aged 11 and 12, as they were walking their dogs. I started to talk to them and quickly got invited in their daily life. A 60 square meter apartment, 4 rooms, Françoise, Thierry, the two unemployed parents. Etienne a neighbor sheltered by the family, five dogs, three cats, and a multitude of objects making a reference to the native Americans or Johny Halliday.

Since we first met, I’ve been photographying them in their flat since, as small as it is comforting like a shelter to their harsh environnement. I’d like to talk about teenagehooh in a working class background and in a developed country like France. I am captivated by the fragility and the resistance that shows at that age and in that social background. The first time we met I understood that I would follow them and no one else: deep in my own past, I can picture myself at the same age, growing up in a similar district.