In Libé's eye
published today at 1:22 p.m.
Extract from Richard Pak's logbook: “Queen Mary's Peak, the summit of the volcano which rises to two thousand meters, is hidden by the monumental cliff which surrounds the island. The raking light of the setting sun reveals the relief and the intense palette of colors. From ocher to deep black for ore, green in all its shades for plants.”
Richard Pak
Extract from Richard Pak's logbook: “The crossing is coming to an end. The ocean has calmed down, the weather is magnificent and the visibility is excellent… Our frail skiff enters the asymmetrical cove of the port under the gaze of at least sixty people. Almost a quarter of the island’s population.”
Richard Pak
It is a story by the explorer Raymond Rallier du Baty written during his stopover at Tristan Da Cunha in 1907 which made Richard Pak want to go there: “Tristan Da Cunha is a society like those who have always dreamed of the philosophers. Everyone contributes to the common good. There is neither hatred nor envy nor malice among them.”
Richard Pak
In 1816, the British installed a garrison in Tristan Da Cunha to prevent the French from handing over Napoleon, then imprisoned in Saint Helena (2000 km further north). A year later, everyone left except Corporal William Glass, his wife and two masons. A contract is signed between these first inhabitants, who call themselves “the firm” and the British crown.
Richard Pak
The current inhabitants, who share nine surnames, are all descendants of exiles and castaways who arrived in the wake of William Glass. As of May 1, 2024, there are 238 islanders and 41 residents are abroad.
Richard Pak
Extract from Richard Pak's logbook: “On a vast plain, wedged between this colossal wall (the cliff which surrounds the volcano) 800 meters high and the immensity of the ocean, Edinburgh if the Seven Seas, the only village that everyone here nicknames “the settlement”. A hundred houses, all more or less built on the same model. Low, rectangular and on an east-west axis (unless it is the opposite?), they have a modest and functional appearance.
Richard Pak
Extract from Richard Pak's logbook: “The potato is sacred here, even more than the lobster. It was the only currency until the 1950s before money appeared on the island. Each family grows it (and nothing else) in their vegetable garden a few kilometers west of the village, the famous potato patches (in photo).”
Richard Pak
In 1961, the eruption of Queen's Mary Peak led to the evacuation of all residents in London, England. The Tristanais had never left their island. The majority (except five deaths in England and five young people) only stayed there for two years, unconvinced by city life.
Richard Pak
In Tristan Da Cunha, the age pyramid is not very encouraging, especially since the island has more men than women.
Richard Pak
Extract from Richard Pak's logbook: “Cave Point is the other part of the island, although much smaller than that where the village is located. There are a few basic sheds which serve as secondary houses (or even tertiary houses if you count those in the potato patches), it’s a bit like the “holiday village” of the Tristanais.”
Richard Pak
For his second opus “The Archipelago of the Third Sex” (2022), Richard Pak arrives in Polynesia where he is interested in the transgender Mahu and the RaeRae who transgress the biological border of the sexes. His third part, “Shipwrecked Island” (2022-2023), will take him to the island of Nauru off the coast of Papua New Guinea, which was one of the richest countries in the world less ago. twenty years thanks to the exploitation of phosphate. Today, the state is bankrupt and the country is ecologically ruined.
