“Children of the River” is a project that began with the discovery of an island located in the Rhône Delta, in the Camargue. After spending several months there in 2020, Marseille-based photographer Yohanne Lamoulère decided to build a boat out of recycled materials: Anita was born from the chance encounter between an abandoned barge and a caravan. She will navigate and travel in stages, against the current, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Rhône Glacier, in order to chronicle and document a territory 812 kilometers long, representing 17% of the land area of metropolitan France. The photographer captured on film a gallery of portraits featuring both ordinary and extraordinary figures, much like this utopian vessel. The Rhône, whose water pollution has been recognized by the French government, appears as a tamed yet fragile river, ambivalent and whimsical.

The artist explains: “This work captures the most contradictory aspects of the Rhône and the way I’ve learned to navigate it, to sleep on its waters, to live there. Observing and resisting: a boat moving upstream, fighting against the current—that in itself is a story full of tension, and this project draws its entire inspiration from that state of being.”

A series that won the major photography commission launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Culture and organized by the National Library of France in Paris.