This series of portraits was taken during the Te Farereira festival in the Austral Islands in November 2022. In 1989, the inhabitants of the five Austral Islands in Polynesia organised a festival to bring their communities together. After being put on hold for 30 years, the festival, known as 'Te Farereira'a' – meaning 'the gathering' – was revived in November 2022. Nearly 500 people from all the islands of the archipelago gathered in Tubuai. What appears to be a uniform, smooth territory from 20,000 kilometres away is, in the words of Tongan thinker Epeli Hau'ofa, 'a sea of islands'.
I am a self-taught photographer. I first arrived in French Polynesia in 1994 on a family trip, and I settled there permanently in 2006. My work is mainly editorial and for the press. I am a founding member of the Paris-based photo news agency IP3 PRESS, created in 2005. I was the photo correspondent for Agence France Presse (AFP)for Polynesia from 2006 to 2019. since 2006,I worked also for the local newspapers and magazines, also the magazines of the Polynesian airlines Air Tahiti Nui and Air Tahiti, and Tahiti Tourisme, the government agency in charge of promoting tourism
