Solange Paradis website aims at digging out overlooked and offbeat topics. It addresses three main topics: “legends and rituals”, “crises and societies” and “wanderlust”:

• “Legends and rituals” explores the impact of belief in societies. All stories are guided by the aim of conveying aesthetics of the sacred. This topic encompasses for instance the building of a mysterious but healing Calvary in the middle of nowhere in French Brittany, Voodoo and religious syncretism in Haiti, Muslim-Christian dialogue in Lebanon and in France, Islam in Guinea and the United Arab Emirates as well as Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia, in the Russian diaspora in France or amid Iraqi refugees in Lebanon.

• “Crises and societies” aims at highlighting overlooked topics that are not in the headlines. It covers for instance strained relationship between Haitians and Dominicans on both sides of a river border, the plight of exile in Lebanon for Christian refugees of Iraq who fled the Islamic State, commitment of resilient Haitian artists to rebuild their country after the earthquake or the offbeat but still serious cause of naked and sometimes disabled riders trying to raise awareness about road safety.

• “Wanderlust” is an invitation to travel across new, and sometimes unrecognized-, lands of discovery, whether it is in Guinea in Western Africa or in Ethiopia, at the other side of the African continent.

A few sound files that I had the opportunity to record might help to sharpen even more visual perceptions.