A WAY OF SEEING

FE AT U R E A WAY O F SEEI N G

All images © Pierrot Men Pierrot Men casts a loving gaze on his homeland, capturing snapshots of the Malagasy people and their relationship with their surroundings. Donatella Montrone reports.

very encounter tells a story

Eand every scene is rich with meaning, says Pierrot Men, a Malagasy photographer who’s been documenting everyday life on the African island for more than 40 years. His role is that of witness to his homeland and the kinfolk who shape its culture. He casts a thoughtful eye on his subjects, transforming the banal – women washing linens in a lagoon, a child writing on a chalk board, a man at the barber – into the poetic. To the viewer, everyday scenes familiar to locals become intimate portraits of an island nation whose habitat is as distinct as its inhabitants.

Madagascar’s undulating coast, its canyons, dunes and mangroves, along with its incomparable biodiversity and multicultural inf luences, set an evocative backdrop for Men’s vignettes, snapshots of the Malagasy people and their surroundings. He brings to life small moments with an artistic eye, capturing details that might otherwise go unseen, imprinting every frame with elegance. His attention to detail and composition draw the viewer in, making it impossible to look away. ‘Everything in Madagascar inspires me,’ he says. ‘I try to make visible the small fragments of life from ordinary things; not the truth, but the essence of things.’

en has no set approach to his

Mphotography and eschews any suggestion that he’s a chronicler. ‘I don’t make well-constructed reportage – other photographers can do that better than me,’ he says. ‘Each of my photographs is an encounter, each image the visceral expression of what I see. I try to find, and reveal, tiny fragments of life, of time… In short, I make images, just images, because to ref lect an image is to run the risk of seeing it disappear.’

He was born Chan Hong Men Pierrot in Midongy du Sud in south-east Madagascar. The son of a French-Malagasy mother and a Chinese father, his career as an artist dates back to his teens, when he took up painting before dedicating his life to photography.

‘My first love was painting,’ he explains. ‘I started in 1972, mainly oils on canvas, copying scenes from the photos I had taken with an old Leica.’ But his talent for imagemaking soon shone, and he abandoned any notion of making a livelihood as a painter, dedicating his life to photography instead. He opened a photo studio, Labo Men, in a poor neighbourhood in Fianarantsoa, the capital of the Haute Matsiatra region in south-central Madagascar. ‘I initially made family portraits and ID photos, and I used to photograph weddings, birthdays, football matches and Famadihanas [the funerary rituals of the Malagasy people]. I did this to make a living, while at the same time mastering the camera.’ ›

›He befriended the renowned Madagascan photojournalist Daniel Rakotoseheno, known as Dany Be, who recorded the country’s ongoing political upheavals and eventually spent time in jail for it. Dany Be felt affinity with Men’s work and in 1985 invited him to collaborate on an exhibition in Antananarivo, the capital city. It was Men’s first photography show, he says, and in effect launched his career and reputation as a master of photography. ‘That’s how my photographic career really started,’ says Men, who hasn’t sat in front of an easel since 1989. adagascar and its inhabitants

Mhave always been at the heart of his work, which is shot entirely in natural light, each snapshot revealing a profound connection between photographer and place. ‘Photography has offered me the most beautiful of gifts: Madagascar and its intimacy, the love of an entire people. My people. And that’s what I have always transmitted, or tried to transmit, in my work.’

Men’s style has been likened to that of Henri Cartier-Bresson, father of the decisive moment, in which the photograph represents the essence of the event. Indeed, Men believes his best pictures are those that are spontaneous, where his gaze is unobtrusive. Rarely are his subjects seen communicating, rarely do they lock eyes with his lens. Instead, they are captured discreetly. His subjects seem languid, perhaps contemplative, immersed in chiaroscuro and oblivious to his presence. ‘I am lucky because my eye has not yet tired of photographing the Malagasy people – they provide an endless source of inspiration. When I take pictures, I sometimes understand right away what I see, but sometimes I feel things without

understanding them, trusting my instincts, leaving the field open to the snapshot.’

He is something of a pioneer in Madagascan photography circles, having set up a studio at a time when itinerant street photographers were few and studios more service-oriented than sources of inspiration. ‘Today, however, there are a lot of photographers in Madagascar. They’re passionate about photography and brimming with confidence,’ determined to elevate African image-makers in the photography world. ‘Photography is alive and well in Madagascar – it has come a long way, with collectives, workshops and shows such as Le Mois de la Photo à Madagascar,’ he says.

Men recalls the first photo he ever took, of a little girl with a lambahoany (loincloth) covering her head. ‘She had a magnificent look. It was my first photo and my first portrait,’ taken with a 1960s Kodak 6x9 folding camera given to him by his father. ‘My dad used that camera to take family photos,’ says Men. ‘I still have it.’

Pierrot Men’s work has exhibited internationally: at Rencontres de Bamako, Biennale Africaine de la Photographie in Mali, Art Élysées in Paris, and Espace Sablon in Brussels, as well as in galleries in major cities throughout the United States and Africa. He’s a recipient of the 1995 Mother Jones Prize in San Francisco, for which he won his trusted Leica camera, that he still uses today, and the Jeux de la Francophonie in Antananarivo. He’s published a number of photobooks, including Gens de Tana, La Mer Comme Quotidien and Des Hommes et des Arbres, and has made work in colour, capturing the same spirited Madagascar that emerges in monochrome. His work is displayed and available for sale in his studio, Labo Men, in Fianarantsoa.

To see more of Pierrot Men’s photography, visit pierrotmen.com or @ pierrotmen on Instagram.