richard pak
Paris, Fr.

The wrecked island takes on the guise of a metaphorical tale of the Anthropocene to depict one of the great disasters of the 20th century. Nauru, in Oceania, went from being the richest country in the world to one of the poorest in less than twenty years. Its history could be a work of literary fiction where delusions of grandeur and greed transformed a paradisiacal island into ecological, economic and social collapse.  The series highlights the allegorical dimension of the world's smallest republic, a treasure island that might have been better off leaving it buried underground.

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In Nauru, everything begins – and ends – with phosphate, which a geologist discovered by chance at the beginning of the last century, intrigued by a stone used to prop open an office door. Exploitation then began by foreign powers who succeeded one another and who would impoverish its soil to enrich their own. At its independence in 1968, the hundreds of millions of dollars from the mining industry made the new state the richest in the world, which it redistributed very generously to its population. At the same time, Nauru invested its fortune in real estate and financial speculation. During two decades of euphoria, the small fishing community adopted the Western lifestyle, began to hyper-consume and spend without counting.

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But the day of reckoning arrived in the mid-90s when phosphate was exhausted, along with the island's almost exclusive revenues. Between delusions of grandeur, corruption and inexperience of decision-makers, real estate investments proved catastrophic and were sold at a loss. An economic and ecological disaster, the country collapsed and became one of the poorest on the planet.

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At the turn of the 20th century, the entire island was covered with dense tropical forest; today it is largely an uninhabitable desert. The population is concentrated on the thin coastal strip that has the deceptive appearance of a tropical Eden. But topside, the central plateau that constitutes four-fifths of the atoll, resembles a field of ruins where pinnacles stretch as far as the eye can see – coral columns that are the remnants of a century of mechanical excavation of the phosphate that surrounded them.

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I photographed the dichotomy of the Nauruan topos with, on one side, the turquoise-water lagoon and the palm trees that encircle the island and, on the other, just behind these few trees that no longer hide any forest, landscapes of desolation. Upon my return, I subjected the negatives to chemical treatment with phosphoric acid. The process alters the emulsion, sparing only the red range, producing an aesthetic rendering that transports us toward (science) fiction or mythological fable. Like the island, these originals thus sacrificed in phosphate emerge irreversibly transformed and impoverished, like an inverted alchemy.

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But if it evokes the myth of the treasure island, Nauru is not a desert island and I needed to "populate" my metaphorical tale. I chose to embody the princes and princesses of this fable two figures of contemporary Nauruan culture: weightlifters and beauty queens. Nauru has forged a reputation as a great weightlifting nation, and numerous clubs dot the island where aspiring champions lift weights in the hope of elevating themselves socially. I photographed them with barbells held at arm's length above their heads, like Damocles who realizes the uncertain condition of wealth and power.

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For thirty years, the annual Miss Nauru contest has gained popularity and taken an increasingly important place in local cultural life. This is also one of the few means of emancipation in a country ravaged by decades of unbridled capitalism. I created portraits of these beauty queens in their contest attire. This ensemble refers to the metaphor of economist John Maynard Keynes who uses the image of beauty contests to illustrate the functioning of financial markets in his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

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Finally, an army of street sweepers works day and night to chase the phosphate dust that covers the entire island from the roads. An absurd and perpetual ballet, this incessant battle lost in advance adds to the mythological dimension of a resolutely singular territory.

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Project funded by the Cnap, La Fondation des Artistes and the « Prix Photographie & Sciences » (Résidence 1+2)