PLASTIC DREAM

started this work by doing some web research on the country I was going to discover, to visit a friend who lives in Cameroon. Pushed by curiosity and surprised to discover that almost nobody spoke about this subject, I ended up meeting a TV reporter and then approach an association that protects these girls. My approach to meeting girls came true in delicacy and dignity. Because the experience of these girls is a great pain. PLASTIC DREAM, questions our own vision of feminity regarding various attempts at body checks, chosen or undergone by some young women. According to cultures, the codes of femininity differ! While some practices tend to make women as feminine as cultural codes predict, others aim to delay the passage of some girls to the stage of young women. This work explores a Cameroonian cultural practice: "breasts ironing". This ironing consists in crushing the mammary gland of young girls having a pubertal development considered too early. This body control is performed by their mother, grandmother, aunt or healer, using objects heated on the fire, diverted from the kitchen. This act involves real physical, psychological and even identity wounds. Yet, paradoxically, this act is above all a benevolent act, aiming to protect these girls from the eyes of men, rape, marriage or early pregnancy, also allow them to continue their studies. Over the portraits, images and texts, and objects, the series enters intimately into the dichotomy of these women, in their relation between nature and culture, protection and conformity, existence and selflessness. And so these breasts, both controlled and sacred, become both eternal hurt and dream of their life, for breast plastic surgery. Like the female stereotypes, these photographs of naked women in black frames are at first glance like precious jewels in their caskets. But the look of these women reveals a much darker reality, a reflection of the dichotomy they live! Each image is accompanied by a text, allowing to go beyond the image, the heart of their psychological intimacy.