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Documentary Series

Sébastien Leban

Photographer

Sébastien Leban

The lost island

Tangier Island is metaphor of the absurd. The small piece of land in the Chesapeake bay is sinking into the ocean, threatened by erosion and sea rise level.

Each year, the Atlantic ocean swallows more than four meter of land. Tangier is home to 460 souls, every single one of them is a climate change sceptic and a Trump lover. The beloved ocean who fed generations of crab fishermen has now become their biggest threat.

In the 2016 presidential election, Tangier granted the Republican's candidate 87 % of its votes, mostly because of Trump's sympathy to Israel. As Christians from the Evangelist church, Tangier's people support the Holy Land in many different ways but mostly financially.

If the amercian administration doesn't come up with a solution and dozen of million dollars, Tangier will disappear in the waters in 25 years and its inhabitants will be among the first americans climate refugees.

Sébastien Leban

Sébastien Leban is an independent French photojournalist born in 1987. He grew up in Lorraine in a mining and steel basin. The proletarian and laborious world that surrounded him will influence the different subjects he addresses. He worked on a first project on his hometown of Florange then interested in Roma people from Romania. Self-taught, he moved to Israel in 2013 to cover a rich and intense area. Back in Paris after two years in the Middle East, he continues to document the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an approach he wants sensitive and human. The objective: to probe the two companies that have been opposing for nearly 70 years through subjects such as conscientious objectors in the Israeli army, the energy problems in Gaza, the African refugees in Tel Aviv or the settlers living in the West Bank. His work revolves around social and societal themes that are dear to him. The subject presented here is based on the components set out and is part of a new problem, that of climate change and its direct impact on the population. Sébastien Leban is a member of the association of photographers Divergence and regularly works in order for several titles like Le Monde, L'Obs, Le Point, Paris Match, L'Equipe Magazine, Grazia, Le Parisien Week-End, etc.