Pour cette série de photos publiée par les éditions Prestel en 2007, le photographe Pieter Hugo a suivi a deux reprises un groupe de montreurs d’animaux qui ont fini par développer une forme d’intimité déroutante avec ces bêtes plus que sauvages.

D’après le photographe :
"These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption ‘The Streets of Lagos’. Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me.
Through a journalist friend I eventually tracked down a Nigerian reporter, Adetokunbo Abiola, who said that he knew the ‘Gadawan Kura’ as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation : ‘hyena handlers/guides’). A few weeks later I was on a plane to Lagos. Abiola met me at the airport and together we took a bus to Benin City where the ‘hyena men’ had agreed to meet us. (...)"

Pieter Hugo The Hyena & Other Men est disponible aux éditions Prestel
ISBN 978-3-7913-3960-3

Photos © Pieter Hugo