For about a decade, I’d had the desire to (re)visit a stage of my life as a photographer. Between the ages of eight and 12, we are no longer quite children, but nor are we adolescents—at least, not yet. It’s at around these ages that we begin to better understand ourselves; an age where friendships start to guide us, and where our immediate environment, whatever it may be, becomes a potential adventure on a grander scale.

When the Hermès Foundation facilitated my travels to the United States, a country I had never before photographed, I thought first of New Orleans. It is a city that—like the children I photographed—is constantly in motion between the eternal reality of life in the town and the ephemeral nature of our existence. According to researchers, New Orleans is one of the first cities in the United States that will disappear with climate change.

It was during my three-month residency in New Orleans in the summer of 2022 that I had the opportunity to meet a group of boys from the Central City neighborhood. They met every morning at a summer camp and every evening in a public park. I spent the long summer days in their company as an observer, not wanting to affect or alter the “scenes” that were playing out before me. The boys taught me a lot about myself and about photography. 

With my project, Mystery Street, I sought to convey the range of emotions felt by this group of boys—from joy to sadness, from boredom to excitement. Like the emotions we feel, perhaps the experience was even stronger because it was not meant to last. Mystery Street is dedicated to them.