An impressive visual testament to a city in transition: harsh for Charleroi, gentle for its inhabitants. In recent years, Stephan Vanfleteren has spent long days traversing the ‘Pays Noir.’ The photographer maintains a love-hate relationship with this industrial city along the Sambre, where coal mines have long since closed and the declining steel industry is cracking under the pressure of the global crisis. While he is sometimes shocked by poverty, crime, and decay, Vanfleteren is often moved by the solidarity, sincerity, and hospitality of the people of Charleroi. Charleroi, It’s Clear That Grey Is Black is not only a visual testament to a dilapidated city; it is also a personal rendering of impressions, reveries, and thoughts of a man who observes, listens, and writes about the dark spectrum of a grey city.
