Série - FotoSlovo 2026 - Category « Enjeux environnementaux et Climatiques »

Flight doesn't begin at sea. It doesn't begin at a fence or at a border checkpoint. It begins much earlier – in places like Mbeubeuss, on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal. A landfill of 1.15 million square meters – the largest open dumping site in West Africa. Once established as a municipal solution for urban waste, it has evolved into a dense, informal labor system.

In Europe, people who flee often only begin to exist in the moment they arrive. Everything before that – the years of waiting, of preparing, of radical uncertainty – we choose not to see. We place the ending at the beginning and call it a story.

Thousands of people work and live here under harsh conditions. They climb trash mounds, recover recyclable materials, and burn plastic to extract copper and aluminum – without gloves, masks, or protective equipment. Daily earnings range from four to nine euros, depending on what is found. This income pays for rent, supports families elsewhere, or is saved toward a step many are preparing for: the journey north.

Mbeubeuss is not just a place of survival. It is a node in a much larger structure. For centuries, borders existed to be crossed – from north to south. Europe expanded, extracted resources, colonized land. Today, the direction has reversed. The movement is coming back. And suddenly, borders are no longer there to be crossed. They are there to stop.

The world is open for profit, but closed for people.

This structure is rarely visible in public debate or media coverage. Most attention focuses on those who reach Europe. Yet many never do. Instead, they wait in places like Mbeubeuss, in a prolonged state of uncertainty – neither fully settled nor able to leave.

Reaching for Dusk begins here. It is a photographic investigation of the realities that unfold before the border is even reached. What does it mean to wait, to work, to prepare for departure – in the shadow of a system that sees you only if you arrive?

These images and encounters are not about success or failure. They are about endurance. About the choices people make in the absence of viable alternatives. About a landfill that has become a departure lounge – not because it was meant to be, but because there is nowhere else to go.

This project traces those early stages. It questions how borders are built, who benefits from them, and how people navigate them long before anyone notices they are moving.