Photographer Mirtho Linguet has inaugurated his exhibition "Songs of Sugar Cane" at the Transportation Camp in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana. The intimate exhibition uses light and shadow to explore the colonial sugar industry's complex legacy and its enduring traces in modern-day Guiana. The opening reception created a subdued, almost spiritual atmosphere within the historic walls of the former penal colony.
Under the walls of the Relegation Hall, light dances across plexiglass surfaces, catching reflections before fading away. The carefully controlled twilight atmosphere made each artwork seem to breathe with history. Linguet's photographic gaze penetrates the sugar cane fields as it does memory itself, creating a narrow path between forgetting and transmission.
The artist approaches sugar cane not merely as an agricultural subject, but as a symbol of ambivalent memory - representing sweetness that conceals suffering and pleasure built upon exploitation. "When we drink rum, it would be good to remember that there were tragedies behind all of that," Linguet reflects with gravity. His work seeks less to denounce than to make viewers feel, awakening consciousness through light and materiality.
At the center of the exhibition space, a red-tinted plexiglass panel draws attention, evoking blood and raw matter. The transparency of the plexiglass panels becomes metaphorical - memory appears visible yet remains fragile and subject to erasure. Visitors sometimes see their own reflections in the images, serving as a reminder that domination and silence are not merely relics of the past. Linguet speaks of "ideological imprisonment," a form of collective blindness that his art attempts to illuminate.
The choice to present this work at the Transportation Camp is far from coincidental. This site of relegation and memory adds an additional dimension to the project, creating dialogue between two histories - that of the penal colony and that of forced labor in the plantations. The artist transforms plant matter into symbol, showing that sugar's beauty cannot erase the pain of those who once cultivated it.
Behind his calm demeanor, the artist carries a conviction to make light a tool of memory and truth. Within walls heavy with suffering, the "songs" of sugar cane take on new resonance - an echo of resistance, dignity, and transmission. One suspended garment appears to wait for someone who will never return, symbolizing absence at the heart of the plantation.
The substantial crowd remained long to contemplate the images, as if suspended by their silence. The exhibition, organized by CIAP and the City of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, is part of the "City of Art and History" initiative, which links heritage with contemporary creation. A heritage delegate opened the vernissage in the presence of photographer Linguet.
"Songs of Sugar Cane" will remain visible until November 6, 2025, inviting viewers to look differently at the light of sugar and the shadow it continues to cast on our collective memory.
