NOS ENFANTS RÊVENT: Allan Touvoli (en)

Nos enfants rêvent imposes an interlude.

A return to a time when innocence is still sustained by an idealized vision of the world. In silence unfolds a season of fleeting brilliance, from bursts of laughter to the splash of puddles beneath the feet of children running toward imagined worlds. These reveries are as agile as they are fragile, inevitably colliding with the realities of everyday life.

Gradually, the contours of another story emerge, one unfolding on a different scale, concerned solely with the place of children.

A place shaped by projected hopes, by realities and responsibilities that cut through them, and by the weight of a socio-economic context imposed upon them.

Here, a child is lifted above the crowd to be seen. Within our imagination, he comes to embody the hopes placed upon him, the one we dream of seeing rise above circumstances we know to be unfavourable to his flourishing.

He becomes a figure of sacrifice and resilience, sustained by the hope of a joyful future.

In the lost paradise of Sassandra, the narrative continues.

The Watcher.

We find him crouched beneath the weight of a fishing boat. He remains beneath the weight of a fishing boat, keeping it above the water after a long day at sea.

Who does this young boy become in our imagination, this child whose agile, supple silhouette is all that is revealed to us? Does he bear the weight of responsibilities assumed too early, in the bitter hope of a better tomorrow?

Now that you can no longer look away, would you dare ask them?

What does he dream of, from one image to the next? What do they dream of, from one smile to another, from one gaze to another, from one cry to another?

   Marie-Hélène Banimbadio Tusiama