Lava Heart

Those photographs were taken on Mallicolo and Ambrym islands, in the remote archipelago of Vanuatu. Ambrym is home to a volcano and is the island of black magic while Mallicolo hosted cannibal rituals for centuries. I wanted to show the relation between man and nature. I had the feeling that, like the landscapes around me, the people were bewitching and wild. It seemed to me as if they had a heart made of lava, boiling, full of life, hypnotizing and scary at the same time. I went three times to Vanuatu and I always felt very safe; it’s only in Ambrym that I felt surrounded by black magic and I was very insecure. I was scared but at the same time, I could not look away. I wanted to show this beauty and this tension in this photo series.