The Salt of Lac Retba

Work in progress · February 2027

Behind the pink surface of Lac Retba, northeast of Dakar, lies a story that is rarely told. Every day, migrant workers from neighbouring countries stand waist-deep in water ten times saltier than the ocean, breaking salt from the lakebed by hand. On the shore, women carry the harvest in baskets on their heads.

I first visited Senegal in 2019. That journey confronted me with the friction between the beauty of everyday life and the visible traces of exploitation. In February 2027 I return, not as a traveller but as a photographer, to get to know the people behind the salt, hear their stories and document their daily reality.

The series will be a triptych: the landscape and the salt, the physical labour of the body, and intimate portraits. Not an indictment alone, but an ode to human resilience: people with their own stories, pride and dignity.