TITLE: Prison Time

This series was commissioned by Hesa Mag in February 2019 to document the topic of reintegration through work in prison.
At the detention center in Melun, France, hosting long-sentenced prisoners, a hundred or so inmates work in the printing and metal workshops. They learn jobs useful for their release from prison. "Many of our clients are ministries," says Alain Hochet, the manufacturing manager of the printing press. He has been supervising inmates for sixteen years. "We have the Ministry of the Interior, Health, Justice ..." The list of what is printed is surprising: records of police custody, shooting targets with black silhouettes, records immobilization of cars, canteen vouchers for prisoners and the sheets of seals that hang on doors after a crime, "like those seen in police detective series on television," says Alain Hochet.
Very few photographers and media are allowed within the prison walls, and no faces are allowed to be shot and showed on picture as per French prison regulation. The series project the notion of time in prison. Working time, where inmates look like any other workers, with outfits and gestures similar to the outside world. And private time, where prisoners are mostly alone facing windows from their dim rooms.
Despite working habits and skills transmission, prisoners are longing for their release. The outside world sheds a light within the prison walls that is irremediably attractive. The prison area remains dark and shady whereas the outside world is clear as a ray of light.

AUTHOR: sadak souici (France)

Sadak Souici was born and raised in the Paris region in 1980. Professional photojournalist since 2008, he works as an independent photographer and freelancer and joined the Pictorium agency in 2014. His work is divided between news report and long-run documentary. His themes are conflict zones, social life, environment and politics. He publishes in France and abroad: Le monde, La Croix, Le Parisien, Mediapart, Liberation, the Guardian, Daily Mirror, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Russia Reporter, la Libre.be, Vice, the New York Times, and RTS for video reports.
After 2 years spent in Ukraine to document the life of civilian populations on the front line between Ukraine and Donbass (his work was then commissioned by the NGO Premiere Urgence to showcase the conflict), he recently spend time in Algeria following people’s pacific walks and protests against the regime in Algier. A national French newspaper, Liberation, selected one of his photography for its cover on March 29, 2019.