Guyarécits

FRAGILE BALANCES

Covered by 90% primary forest, mangroves and savannahs, French Guiana is home to some of the richest and most vulnerable biodiversity in the world. Its population, estimated at 300,000 inhabitants in 2023, has doubled in twenty years. Strong demographic growth is accentuating economic, social and territorial imbalances. Essential services remain unevenly distributed between the coast and the interior, while economic development relies heavily on the exploitation of natural resources, fuelling debate and tension. This dynamic is unfolding in a deeply pluralistic society, where Amerindian peoples, Bushinengue communities, Brazilians, Haitians and Surinamese coexist: so many different ways of living, thinking and inhabiting this fragile and abundant territory.

CREATING STORIES, CREATING CITIES

The Guyarécits project, led by the Graine Guyane network in partnership with the Idahun theatre company and illustrator Olivier Copin, aims to explore new forms of development through the Metis initiative, with a view to imagining a desirable future that respects different ways of life.

In Cayenne, students from the Balata comprehensive school, which specialises in visual communication, are working with residents of a nursing home to design the Amazonian city of tomorrow: a sustainable city where infrastructure, biodiversity and human life coexist harmoniously.

Five workshops bring together around twenty participants to discuss urban planning, water, food, biodiversity and health, combining conferences, round tables, films, readings, visits and testimonials. These exchanges stimulate the imagination and give rise to new urban utopias.

At the same time, creative workshops allow participants to put their stories into words with the Idahun theatre company, then transform them into images and sets with Olivier Copin. A week-long artistic residency then brings these stories to life in a live show, where the illustrations blend into sets reworked with the school’s students.

The project will conclude with a public performance in Cayenne, open to residents, elected officials and partners, before the show tours the region and the stories and illustrations are compiled into a collection for wider distribution.