PARIS
FEBRUARY 12 - MAY 17, 2025
L'ombre [The shadow]
C’est frêle et corrosif. [It is fragile and corrosive.]
C’est une fissure abyssale. [It is an abyssal crack.]
C’est presque rien et c’est tout. [It is almost nothing, yet it is everything.]
C’est tout ce qui ne se saisit pas. * [It is everything that cannot be grasped.]*
Published in 2024, these few words by Élie Ramanankavana resonate, gripping the gaze and echoing the images of photographer Rijasolo featured in this exhibition—images that unsettle the mind and sing of mystery. The subtle interplay of light and shadow, described by the young Malagasy poet, seems to reflect Rijasolo’s subjective approach, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in a world at the edge of the recognizable. The delicate and fragile balance between what is revealed through the image and what remains obscure and imperceptible forms the core of the exhibition La nuit porte la lumière / Nyalina noho mitondry ny fahazavana [The night carries the light]. Interweaving intimate depictions with previously unseen photographs from more than a decade of reportage in Madagascar, this exhibition presents a constellation of fleeting moments that celebrate imagination and the beauty of uncertainty.
La nuit porte la lumière [The night carries the light] juxtaposes two distinct environments and atmospheres, each responding to the other through its own photographic language. On the ground floor, interior scenes are displayed. Intimate domestic spaces—bedrooms and living rooms—appear immersed in a gently silent atmosphere. The residents ofthese spaces read, doze, or have simply left. These quiet, almost meditative images evoke a break, a moment suspended outside the bustle of daily life. The walls, ceilings, and sheets, tinted in beige and green, lend these interiors and the objects within them the appearance of monochromatic still lifes. Rijasolo’s chosen perspective is frontal, offering meticulous attention to detail while maintaining a certain distance from the subjects. The soft, filtered light seems to caress objects, disappearing into the interstices and blind spots of the images, into the folds of drapery and the cracks in thewalls. Ethereal and ghostly, this light invites the viewer to contemplate spaces caught between moments—the waiting for nightfall and the end of the day, the tranquility of a world falling aspleep.
The basement of the La nuit porte la lumière [The night carries the light] exhibition unfolds an entirely different energy. Visitors step into another dimension, that of the Malagasy night, with its contradictions and sparkles. Here, photography becomes more vivid, more fragmented, and more personal. A succession of nocturnal urban scenes takes shape. Bars, clubs, cinemas, concerts, and public gatherings spread across the walls. The viewer is immersed in a vibrant and enigmatic landscape, where the boundaries between celebration and transgression, togetherness and solitude, as well as rituals of life and death, blur into one another. The presence of the artist, Rijasolo, is palpable within the images. He moves through the scenes, drawing closer to his subjects, tilting his camera, and breaking the surrounding moments into fragments. The sharp bursts of his Leica’s flash momentarily illuminate bodies in motion, instants where joycollides with violence, where the street’s trance is frozen into striking images. Other, more ambiguous photographs intertwine with the dance, infused with shades of green and red, as if struck by the surrounding electric glow.The rhythm of the images reflects the whirlwind of nightlife: excitement, confusion, but also threat. Juxtaposed and removed from their original narrative fabric, these photographs capture the density and multiplicity of nocturnal experiences.
The exhibition’s scenographic design within the Parisian space of Fondation H underscores and enhances this notion of transition, this passage from one world to another. The descent into the basement symbolizes a venture into the unknown, a journey leading to the dark and unseen corners of the world. La nuit porte la lumière [The night carries the light] is a celebration of wandering. This shift between floors resonates not only with the artist's creative evolution and his wanderings through the Malagasy space, but also with his desire to gradually distance himself from the codes of photojournalism and documentary image creation. Within these exhibition spaces, Rijasolo refuses to offer a tangible vision of reality. Instead, he invites visitors to experience reality through aplural and subjective gaze. By stepping beyond the confines of the predictable and the explainable, we enter the shadows and explore what is usually hidden from view.
Rijasolo’s journey is defined by a continuous search for new visual languages and ways to connect with and interpret his surroundings. Born in France, his relationship with Madagascar is shaped by a constant ambivalence, between proximity and distance, the familiar and the unknown. Before fully dedicating himself to photography, Rijasolo worked as a sailor in the French Navy, where he regularly used a logbook to "capture" an ever-changing environment, make sense of external forces, and document the state of the world through observation, notation, and interpretation. This practice of observing and collecting bits and pieces of atmosphere has shaped his photographic vision. By capturing an image, Rijasolo gives meaning to his environment. In 2004, after more than twenty years away, he returned to Madagascar for the first time. His work began with Miverina, a visual exploration of the difficulty of reconnecting with the land of his parents. His first monograph, Madagascar, nocturnes, was published in April 2013. His deep understanding of social issues in both urban and rural contexts, combined with his extensive travels across Madagascar from north to south, led him to work asa press photojournalist for over a decade. His photographic reports have been featured in Le Monde, Paris Match, and Agence France-Presse, culminating in his receipt of the World Press Photo Award in 2022.
Parallel to his journalistic work, Rijasolo’s personal practice, as shown in this exhibition, has taken an introspective and poetic turn, favoring images that exist “on the margins” of the political and historical events most represented in the media. Rather than seeking objectivity or analysis, his personal images, often captured in transit, on the way to or from an assignment, embrace ambiguity and false leads. His work does not aim to tell a clear, linear story, convey a universal truth, or illustrate a specific narrative. This collection of images, part of which forms the exhibition La nuit porte la lumière [The night carries the light], moves away from the apparent “transparency” of traditional documentary discourse to explore the limits of description. It is, as Rijasolo explains, a photography that does not seek to be “functional” and instrumental, but to convey a fleeting, elusive sensation. His influences are diverse and eclectic, ranging from photographers such as Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, and Léonard Pongo to the traditions of Asian cinema and Eastern European photography, with a particular focus on raw, vivid, and twilight-like storytelling. Over time, Rijasolo’s singular photographs have multiplied and accumulated, filling the pages of an imaginary and intimate journal, now unveiled to the public for the first time.
This exhibition marks a significant turning point in Rijasolo’s career, blurring the lines between documentary, personal photography, and fiction. Moving away from the often-rigid framework of traditional photojournalism, he positions himself here as an active participant rather than a “casual observer”. His images reveal poetic nostalgia, an exploration not only of places, but of the inner landscapes of the artist and his subjects. These photographs embody a personal and instinctive quest, a journey where ambiguity is the only certainty. The camera becomes a tool for capturing the intangible: silent moments, spaces between narratives, fleeting instances of human existence that resist a singular reading. Through this monograph, Rijasolo presents a body of work that challenges our very perception of “seeing”. This pivotal moment in his career reflects a pursuit of freedom and reinvention, as well as a celebration of the image for its own sake. Rijasolo's new photography asserts a representation that is deliberately imprecise, decompartmentalized, fractured, hazardous and elusive. La nuit porte la lumière [The night carries the light] stands as a collection of disparate and wandering images that, once assembled, invite to daydream. As Rijasolo himself puts it,“With photography, one can lose themselves in something.”
Originally written in French by Julie Bonzon
* Excerpt from thepoem L’Ombre by Élie Ramanankavana, Encre et Lumière, Mpariaka BokyEditions, 2024, p. 9.
BIOGRAPHY OF RIJASOLO
Born in 1973 in France, Rijasolo is a photographer and photojournalist based in Antananarivo, where he lives and works. After a career as a civil servant in the French Navy in Brest, he embarked on a self-taught journey into photography in the early 2000s.
In 2004, he returned to Madagascar, his country of origin, which he had not visited for 20 years. There, he undertook his first series, MIVERINA, in which he sought to capture the challenges of reconnecting with the island on a personal level. His selection for the ‘Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine de Bamako’ in 2005 gave him the confidence to fully dedicate himself to photography. In 2006, he trained at EMI-CFD in Paris and became a photojournalist for the French (Libération, Le Monde, Paris Match and Jeune Afrique) and international press, collaborating with AFP (Agence de Presse Française) since 2013.
Permanently settled in Madagascar since 2011, Rijasolo has gained both local and international recognition as a photojournalist, focusing his lens on the realities of the island. He has worked on assignments for various NGOs, shedding light on social issues and the complexities of conflicts within the country.
His work has been widely acknowledged and honored at numerous international photography events. His traveling exhibition MALAGASY, a profound and detailed social portrait of Madagascar’s people, was first showcased in 2017 at the 5th ‘Biennale Internationale de Photographie Addis Foto Fest’ in Ethiopia, and later in 2018 at the 11th ‘Biennale de la Photographie Africaine Rencontres de Bamako’. Whetherin art or documentary photography, Rijasolo’s pictures are distinguished by their sensitivity and contrasting aesthetic. Among his influences, he quotes Pierrot Men and Sebastião Salgado.
The photographer has also been recognized for both his photojournalism and the artistic quality of his projects. In 2019, Rijasolo is the winner of Prix Paritana and will benefit from a residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, followed by an exhibition entitled MALAGASY. In 2022, he won the World Press Photo Award in the Africa Long-Term Project category for his series The Zebu War. The result of ten years of work, this black-and-white visual narrative documents the enduring practice of zebu theft in southern and western Madagascar, a longstanding issue driven by illegal trafficking by the dahalo.
INTERVIEW OF RIJASOLO