Naam Na La

Charlotte Yonga

2024 — Senegal

About this series

In May 2021, I took part in an artist residency in Senegal, invited by the Fondation Blachère and photographer Lou Escobar, who served as curator. The chosen theme was “Love”—a word I found both overused and elusive, difficult to represent without falling into cliché. I spent a month in Dakar with this abstract yet omnipresent concept circling in my mind. Gradually, through an intuitive and open process, I began to photograph.
Back in Europe, as I was discovering my developed films, I received a message from Assane, who had posed for me in Dakar. He wrote: “Naam Na La,” a Wolof expression that translates literally as “I have the nostalgia of you”—a more poetic version of “I miss you.” His words struck a deep chord and echoed the emotional undercurrent I had unconsciously sought to reveal through my images.
This series approaches love as something complex and layered—uncertain, fragile, ambivalent. It is present in bodies and gestures, in the in-between spaces, in the warmth of light and the tension of shadows. Love here is not always obvious or resolved; it lingers, sometimes hidden, sometimes overwhelming. Consoling views of the ocean and vegetation punctuate the sequence like deep breaths—metaphors for hope, fertility, and infinity. Together, the images trace an emotional landscape where love persists in its fullness as much as in its absence.

Photographer: Charlotte Yonga
Nationality: Cameroonian /French
Based in: Paris, France
Website:  www.charlotteyonga.com
Instagram: @charlotteyonga