Charleroi – Il est clair que le gris est noir [Signed]

21 x 17 cm
256 pages
Hardcover
DUOTONE
ENG edition

Impressive visual testament of a city in transition: hard for Charleroi, gentle for its inhabitants

In recent years, Stephan Vanfleteren has spent long days crisscrossing the Pays Noir. The photographer has a love-hate relationship with the industrial town on the banks of the Sambre, where the coal mines have long since closed and the declining metal industry is cracking under the effects of the global crisis. While he is sometimes shocked by the poverty, crime and degradation, Vanfleteren is often moved by the solidarity, sincerity and hospitality of the people of Charleroi.

Charleroi, it's clear that grey is black is not only a visual testament of a dilapidated city; it is also the personal rendering of impressions, reveries and thoughts of a man who looks, listens and writes about the black specter of a grey city.

Text and photos by Stephan Vanfleteren.

Book of the exhibition at the Museum of Photography in Charleroi, from May 23 to December 6, 2015.

“ Love at first sight. I can’t describe in any other way what happened when I discovered Charleroi in the early 1990s.

The view from the top of the slag heaps is striking: the Sambre which cuts through the city almost invisibly, the "Ring" which surrounds it like a cesspool, the factories anchored like aircraft carriers in the very centre of the city and the numerous slag heaps which lie in the distance.

Charleroi is sick, tired, worn out, burnt out, wounded, humiliated. But if some blind minds were once able to catalogue Charleroi as the ugliest city in the world, its inhabitants are nonetheless the warmest hosts I have ever met in Belgium. I love Charleroi. I kiss it on the mouth despite its stinking breath .

Stephan Vanfleteren