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Charleroi, a former prosperous industrial city, is today nothing more than the ghost of what it used to be. The factories have shut down one after another and dragged the city into an inevitable economical and social decline despite the city council’s efforts to conceal it.
Charleroi’s region is commonly called “Le Pays Noir” (the Black Country) referring to its numerous coal mines.
The city was incidentally designated as the “ugliest city in the world” by a Flemish newspaper. Today a few initiatives are trying to restore Charleroi’s shine, but they look like a band aid covering a hemorrhage.
This pictures series attempts to depict the city and its peculiar situation, between fantasy and phantasmagoria, between the American dream and the Belgian nightmare.
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