Sarah Lowie
Sixmille
Sixmille is the post code of Charleroi. An ancient industrial city in Belgium, called “The black city”. Formerly covered in coal dust, Charleroi is particular, strange, awkward. A small town where almost everybody knows each other. And here I am, coming from the outside. Discovering a fascinating world, a universe completely different than what I used to know. They let me come, knowing I was a photographer. I came back the next weekend, and the weekend after that… Then every time I could. I started to live with them. To follow their routine, to enter in their privacy. And their daily life. It became mine. I became one of them. They became my family. A world made of parties, lies, laughs, weed, troubles, excitements, manipulations, betrayals, dreams and derision, alcohol… A world build around the present moment. We were enjoying life, fully. An african mentality on the european territory. An way more authentic world then the one I knew before. Intense. The one that awakens instincts. The one that shows what adrenaline really is. A world that challenges everything.Reality. No. Your reality. A love story is born there. Between me and one of them. Django. Immersed and overwhelmed by so many things… Let me introduce you the rapper group, Madil City Gang.
Bio
Sarah Lowie studied Photography, screenprinting and engraving at 75 in Brussels, Belgium and during her last year she SIXMILLE. In June 2016, she exhibited for the first time SIXMILLE in Contretype. The work has also been showed in “Boutographies” in Montpellier.
So very good, Obviously captions would be nice but this screams for some video to accompany the pics.
As with the previous essay, this has some very nice portraits, but I am not getting any sense of Charleroi as a place and how all of these people interact with that place. This is all private space, private to the point where this could be Caleb Stein’s Poughkeepsie and no one would know the difference. Private space is good, but even private space happens somewhere. Otherwise, I like this a lot.
As I see it, this isn’t about Charleroi: Sarah Lowie states clearly that it’s about a rapper group called the ” Madil City Gang.” For me, she sets enough of the context by briefly saying something about Charleroi. For the rest, she also indicates there is an autobiographic element. That’s all I need to know — the pictures say the rest. No need for captions; the pictures speak clearly enough.
But I think the French text in the link below is better the introduction above:
http://www.contretype.org/sarah_lowie_fr.html