Since 2016, Laurence Grun (director) and Pierre Vanneste (director and photographer) have been documenting the social, economic and environmental transformations taking place in Bargny, a Senegalese town located 35 kilometres from Dakar.
Long dependent on fishing and agriculture, Bargny is now being overtaken by rapid industrialisation, reflecting the economic development underway in Senegal. For its inhabitants, however, this transformation comes at the cost of a gradual dispossession of their land and resources and significant environmental degradation.
Bargny is caught in a vice on all four sides. To the west, a cement plant and its quarries have transformed the landscape. To the east, a coal-fired power plant, a mineral and bulk cargo port, and a special economic zone are taking hold. To the north, a new city is planned: the Diamniadio urban hub. To the south, the ocean is advancing, directly threatening homes, communal spaces and cemeteries along the coast, which are being eroded as a result of climate change.
For these Lebou fishing communities, this upheaval undermines ways of life and relationships with the land that have been passed down through generations. Family lands, declared to be of public interest, are being handed over to industrial or real estate developers. Pollution, the destruction of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and pressure on water resources are contributing to deteriorating living conditions as the territory closes in.
Presented as a promise of development, jobs and modernity, industrialisation in Bargny stands in stark contrast to a far more complex and ambivalent reality.
The documentary project Bargny, la mer et le ciment (Bargny, the Sea and Cement) is built on a sustained and repeated presence in the field. Returning, observing and reconnecting with the inhabitants year after year make it possible to capture gradual transformations that are often invisible in a single image.
In 2018, the first chapter gave rise to the web documentary Bargny, ici commence l’émergence, published by Le Soir and Basta!mag, and subsequently presented at the Festival des Libertés in Brussels in 2019.
More recently, Bargny has become one of the chapters of the film MANDARGA, a 2026 medium-length documentary devoted to the material and social traces left by industrial processes.
About Laurence Grun and Pierre Vanneste
Laurence Grun and Pierre Vanneste are two Belgian filmmakers with an innovative artistic background spanning photography, transmedia documentary, and augmented video. Their projects, approached from social and environmental perspectives, examine the impact of industrialisation on territories and living beings.
Together, they co-directed Bargny, the Real Face of Economic Emergence, a finalist for the 2019 Visa d’Or for Digital News, and conducted the long-term investigation [P2O5], the Toxic Impact of Phosphate, as well as DREMMWEL, a project exploring overfishing.
Their work has been featured in the press and exhibited in museums and at international festivals. MANDARGA is their first feature film, extending their field-based experiments and theoretical reflections. [Official Website]
