SQEVNV is a series that deals with violence in Latin America, or rather a certain urgency to live. I began this work in 2015 in Venezuela, the country at that time was entering a great crisis of violence and I confess that I was overwhelmed by the electric atmosphere that Caracas could have. The danger extinguished palpable at every exit and I began to develop a kind of fascination with the adrenaline that it gave me.

The title of my series is an abbreviation of the sentence “Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos“, which means “as long as we are alive we will see each other“. That was the last sentence Yair said to me, he was a gang leader from Caracas. It’s a phrase tattooed in my heart. The awareness of his own end had something terrible and sublime at the same time. Yair was murdered two months later. I returned several times to Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil) my eyes were alert to the scars of this continent. I met other people there and all of them had to teach me about life and death. All of them led me to try to understand why this continent was prey to a kind of Eros and Thanatos violence.

Photography allowed me to translate this insolent sensuality that sweats.”

Celine Croze  (Interview by Valentine Zeler)