“Dreamscapes of Congo-Brazzaville: The Enigmatic Sleeping Girl by Henry Roy”

Henry Roy’s publication, Impossible Island, which encompasses four decades of his photographic journey, is interwoven with visuals of dreamers and sleepers found in various parts of the globe – Thailand, Tunisia, his adopted France, and his birthplace, Haiti. In 2002, Roy captured this image of a girl crafting a spontaneous cradle from a wheelbarrow in Congo-Brazzaville. Like many of his most compelling photographs, it provokes a multitude of inquiries from the observer – with the prominent one appearing to be: how drowsy do you need to be to rest here?

Roy’s visuals frequently operate this way: they construct small mythologies that appear to transport their subjects beyond their specific time and location. In his 2017 publication Superstition, he remarked that his endless pursuit is for images that “whisper the secret dialect of a world freed from our contaminants”. In this instance, the lively Sunday-best floral patterns of the girl, along with the meticulousness of her hair, seem to lift her above the clay and dust of her environment. It’s no surprise that Roy’s images have been acknowledged as significant sources of inspiration for cinematographers and filmmakers, especially Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins, who mentioned that he was motivated to create some of the visual allure of Moonlight from examining Roy’s work.

The photographer transitioned from Haiti to France during his childhood, yet he feels he conveys elements of his heritage, including voodoo customs, in his perspective. “My connection to the unseen and the realm of the deceased imposed itself upon me very early in my artistic journey,” he expressed in one interview. “I seek the concealed truths within colors and forms. It is an authentic obsession. When I snap a photo, I sometimes sense that every particle of matter encapsulates the entirety. Color serves as a channel of unmatched strength.”