Lys Arango 
Spain • Born: 1988
One day the fields will flourish again, in Guatemala 

In Guatemala, the soil is deteriorating and people are going hungry, a stark reminder of how easily we can take the land and its generosity for granted.

In the country’s eastern “dry corridor” (corredor seco) the seasons are no longer predictable. Rain is increasingly rare and harvests have been reduced to almost nothing. Maize, a cornerstone of Maya identity and diet, no longer grows as it once did in this region, and in and in this droughtstricken corridor, one in two children now suffers from chronic malnutrition.

Spanish photographer Lys Arango has been documenting this silent, structural crisis in Guatemala since 2019. Her work also chronicles the aspirations of an entire people striving to revive a natural world that is slowly fading away.  

Now based in Paris, Arango combines a gentle, attentive eye with colours reminiscent of the great Flemish painters to show us what is left when there is nothing more to harvest. Here in La Gacilly, this exhibition is brought together in full. Firmly anchored in both social and environmental concerns, this exhibition has been made possible thanks to the support of the ‘CCFDTerre Solidaire Prize for Humanist and Environmental Photography,’ awarded by the French humanitarian NGO CCFDTerre Solidaire.

Arango spent six years documenting families who were living without rain, support or any real future. Some lost their children, while others made the difficult decision to send theirs on migrant routes north. This was never a free choice, but as they say, it is still preferable to “staying put and slowly dying”.

Arango’s work does not seek impact through overstatement or sensationalism. Instead, she looks beyond a bleak picture of drought, hunger, and displacement to highlight solutions that could help people break out of this vicious circle of climate poverty. Her photographs focus on what endures, on forms of resistance, and on what remains. Her sustained approach over many years allows her to suggest potential answers to this crisis.

Arango explains: “I’m not looking to photograph hunger; I’m looking to capture what people can do despite that. I aim make their voices heard and to keep supporting the families I’ve met. I want to use my art to shed light on their struggles; not showing them as isolated stories but rather as acts of true resistance and self-determination.” 

This exhibition has been produced in partnership with CCFDTerre Solidaire. 

Lys Arango is one of five winners of the CCFDTerre Solidaire Photo Prize, Jury Award, supported by SAIF, for humanist and environmental photography. 

CCFDTerre Solidaire, which views photography as a way of bearing witness to its work around the world, awarded Arango a €10,000 grant that enabled her to bring this project in Guatemala to completion. 

Chemin des Libellules.