In April 2015, with the help of Tomas Vlach, emergency coordinator for the NGO "People in Need", I visited families living in old cold war bunkers in the cities of Marianka and Petrovsky - Donetsk Oblast (province), Ukraine. They live there for two possible reasons: either their houses got destroyed or damaged by the fighting between Ukrainian army and the separatists, or they are just afraid, traumatized by the constant sound of the mortars, bombs, automatic weapons, etc. Hence, they chose to abandon their home and seeked refuge in these old underground concrete constructions. Most of the families began abandoning their houses in August 2016 as the battle between the protagonists was getting extremely intense. These bunkers are located in the separatists controlled zone. Humanitarian organizations can have access to it. However, it’s very difficult to organize things since it is a war area. Some of the bunkers have electricity, and most of them don't have any water system. So, either humanitarian organizations bring bottles of water,or during the day, the residents run back to their houses to fill bottles. The concrete walls of the bunkers are unpainted, so, a fine white dust constantly falls from the cement. It gradually covers beds, tables and everything. And it rises when you walk, even if the families try their best to clean it up. Since the end of cold war, these bunkers have been unused, so the owners (coal mines, municipality, etc.) tolerate these squatters for humanitarian reasons.

Since 2005, the city of Istanbul is moving forward with a controversial project called “The Tarlabasi Renovation project”. It claims to renew this poor area of Istanbul, tearing down more than 20 000 square meters of old buildings, and replacing them with brand new apartments, hotels, condos, shopping malls, etc. The problem is that 95% of the population living in this area are Kurdish and Gypsies. There is no way that they will be able to afford an apartment in the rebuilt area. Most of them are going to be evicted to one of the suburbs surrounding Istanbul. They will be moved from a very poor area to another one. The situation there is very explosive. You can feel the tension when you talk to the Kurdish people living in Tarlabasi. The “Tarlabasi Renovation Project” aimed to be finished by 2015.

From volunteers bringing foods and other goods to the Ukrainian army, to the front line positions of the belligerents.

Photos from Roma people in Bosnia i Herzegovina. In Sarajevo and around.

The drone team relies on a multitude of spare parts from used equipments since the Ukrainian army don't supply them with any new parts. On April 5th 2015, I had a chance to see the Dnipro1 regiment drone team operating. I followed them to the drone camp where they launch drone flights to spy the enemy positions. This is of crucial importance as the Ukrainian army has almost no way to know where the separatists are hiding. The drones are built by volunteers and sold for a fraction of the cost to the army.

These photos represent my personal point of view of Inukjuak, especially the people and their daily life.

Landscape of Inukjuak during Winter 2017.

As a photojournalist, I have since the 90’s covered war zones and humanitarian issues. But with the pandemic, I am now restrained to my hometown, Montreal. I heard about how the artists here are suffering from the situation and began to talk to contemporary dancers and choreographers, trying to understand how they are coping with the situation. They really feel left aside, as theatres are closed and they are not allowed to perform in public. So, as the second wave of COVID-19 hit hard, in October 2020 I began a project with Montreal’s main dance companies, to talk about them, and show their work in the form of a photo report. Not only their works, but also their feelings, fears and hopes. I asked some of the choreographers and artistic directors to write a small text to accompany photos, to explain how they currently feel inside: As it turns out, they either had to cancel their shows, lay off dancers or like Margie Gillis, "Cas Public" and "Création Estelle Clareton", completely redo their work, adapting it to the situation, rehearsing with masks or keeping a safe distance between dancers. In other words, they saw their creations been almost completely reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.