Lucas
FRAYSSINET 

The Faroe Islands lie between Iceland and Norway north of the Atlantic Ocean in the Norwegian Sea. Their population is quite low, a little over 50,000 people reside there, including 30,000 around the capital: Torshavn. This city and its peripheral towns constitute the economic, cultural and educational heart of this autonomous province attached to Denmark.

The Faroese have very strong cultural and identity roots, they have their own language and they almost all know each other by their last name, so they know approximately where each one comes from.

Therefore, their genealogy is very close and many of them are distant cousins. This is also one of the problems specific to relatively sparsely populated island places like this one.

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During the first weeks of the trip, besides the fact that they have a very strong sense of sharing and community, a physical bond between these people appeared to me. They can be characterized as an elegant mix of British, Danish and Icelandic populations, with quite unique traits in addition. In summary, their typical physique consists of light hair and light eyes.

However, this class of students from Torshavn High School is surprisingly physically diverse. This is the first thing I noticed, despite all the same some redundancies. Personalities for the most part creative, very focused on music, drawing, comedy and photography in general. These ephemeral encounters plunged me into the heart of the youth of the Faroe Islands.

I saw a world of difference between this generation and that of their parents. The young generation is very free-spirited, quite wanton and rather involved in the recognition of women and the LGBT community. In addition, she is relatively attached and aware of environmental issues. A vegetarian trend born, however it is limited due to the lack of vegetable culture and the dependence on fruit and vegetable imports. They follow European influences closely, they listen to pop like all young people but also a lot of hard-rock-punk music groups, some of which are Faroese. Also, some follow the traditions instilled by their parents and go to Church regularly to sing and pray.

The generation of their parents is, on the contrary, quite conservative, mainly linked to religion and biblical beliefs. There is only one religion in the Faroe Islands. They practice daily, whether it is prayer before each meal but also family church songs on Sunday. They thus attach a certain importance to the family but also to traditions of all kinds which constitute their identity as Faroese. Even if some of them are controversial like that of whaling / dolphin hunting ...

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This project is a personal immersion in a class of Faroese students learning French. I worked there as a Francophone then as a photographer. The goal is to achieve a personal and representative portrait of the personality of each of them.

With their teacher, Napoleon, they are currently carrying out the project of writing a magazine in French, intended for French-speaking tourists arriving in the Faroe Islands through the direct airline recently created by Atlantic Airways, between Paris and Vagar. These portraits are intended to show their author faces at the end of the magazine.