Les Vans du Hasard

— Where Trash and Fate Refuse to Line Up

I used to think fate would approach us with some degree of elegance, that even its endings might show a little dignity. But after photographing a dozen flea-market vans, I’m certain of one thing: fate’s real form is probably a pile of banana boxes, scattered old clothes, memories stuffed in plastic crates, and a back door that never really shuts.

These vendor vans are drawers the world forgot to tidy up. One glance inside and you see the aftershocks of human civilization.

Someone eats lunch curled up inside a van, as if resisting something.
Someone stuffs half a lifetime of failures and half a lifetime of stubbornness into the same blue crate. Someone looks like they’re fleeing, or working, or digging for gold in the ruins of their own life.

And I stand in front of these open doors, a calm observer who pretends not to be soft-hearted. I don’t photograph them for romance, but to prove a simple truth: reality is uglier than romance, more persistent, and far more compelling.

These vans are portable shelters.
Objects inside gain new destinies,Mmemories wait to be re-chosen, re-priced, re-started.

No one’s life is clean or streamlined.
Whatever is stuffed into these trunks is probably stuffed into people’s hearts as well: things we can’t throw away, things we won’t sort out, things we hide, things we secretly hope someone will understand.

People drift between vans and streets as if rearranging their goods and rearranging themselves at the same time. Fate moves among them, like a moody second-hand dealer with an attitude problem.

And I’m here to record it. Not for poetry, not for tragedy, not for sympathy. But because these scenes remind me of a harsh, funny truth:

We’re all trying to carve out a little space in the trunk of our own lives, trying to line up our chaos so it looks presentable, and then keep moving.

Even if the door never really closes. Even if the things inside never stop overflowing.