Cedric Gerbehaye, Caroline LalarcheZoonose

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Belgian photographer Cédric Gerbehaye cancelled a trip to Pakistan and confined himself to France with his daughter. In April, the spread of the virus exploded, claiming many victims in the province of Hainaut. Cédric then decided to return to Belgium and document this moment which echoes the situations of war that he has often encountered since he became a photographer (Congo, Palestine, South Sudan…). The city of La Louvière and its mayor agreed to his desire to work in immersion, mainly at the Tivoli University Hospital, but also in an old people’s home and in a few other social places. La Louvière is a municipality with a strong working-class tradition inherited from the industrial revolution (steel industry). Like many Belgian cities, it was particularly affected by the virus, with a large number of patients in the first wave. With the support of the hospital management, Cédric Gerbehaye lived close to the care workers for a year.

From the outset, he associated the writer Caroline Lamarche with his experience. A first series of photographs and a first text, written in the heat of the hospital tension, sealed their collaboration. On this basis, they will continue their immersion during the three successive waves, from spring 2020 to summer 2021. The whole will become part of the collections of the archives of La Louvière and will be accessible to all, so that the collective memory lives on.