Bobby Sands: Belfast, mai 1981
Yan Morvan

Bobby Sands died on May 5, 1981 at 1:17 in the morning. On March 1, 1981, he began a hunger strike followed by nine other political prisoners who were members of the IRA and the INLA. Their demands: to obtain the status of political prisoners to which they are entitled. They all died, the last one in almost general indifference. Those weeks that Yan Morvan lived in Derry and Belfast, living with the rioters of Catholic neighbourhoods, photographing the tension, despair, faith, and courage of the Irish people, using the camera as a weapon to serve their cause, persuaded him forever of the validity of photographic witness as an instrument of memory, emotion, reflection, guarantees of a free and democratic world.

Yan Morvan (b. 1954) is a French photographer, journalist, photojournalist and author particularly recognised for his war photography and images of underground communities. His career, which began in 1974, has specialised in examining the underside of the society, his photographs have depicted the lives of underground communities, such as bikers, far right and far left activists, gangs, and sex workers. ¹

André Frère Éditions is a publisher of art books and photobooks based in Marseille. It is run by André Frère, a graphic designer.