Naam Na La

I long for you

Senegal, 2021

Last year, I was invited to an art residency program in Senegal, whose theme was « Love ». I spent a month with this word in mind, in a very intuitive approach.

Back in Europe, while I was discovering my developed film rolls, I received a text from Assane who had posed for me in Dakar. He was writting to me “Naam Na La” translating this Wolof expression as “I long for you”. These words echoed with Love as it moves me and as I had unconsciously wanted to reveal it. Love experienced through its feeling of immensity and eternity as much as through its inconsistency, lack of and flaws. The Love that can also be uncertened, troubled or ambivalent, surrounded by oceanic views and decors metaphorizing hope, promises, fecundity and infinity.

Charlotte Yonga takes an attentive look at individuals and territories. Her approach, impregnated with dramaturgy is traversed by questions linked to the notion of individuality subjected to delocalization, personal identity processes and alterity. The subjects she depicts, mostly "ordinary" people are facing the viewer in an alchemy that summons with realism, strength and fragility. Charlotte shows tangible personalities captured in their complexities. She lives and works in Barcelona, Spain and Paris, France.