Charles Paulicevich : Nous, la réserve

Between 2019 and 2025, Charles Paulicevich travelled through Belgium’s working world — factories, quarries, construction sites and warehouses — using the FGTB trade union network to meet workers and gain access to their workplaces. But his project extends beyond the workplace: weddings, baptisms, celebrations and demonstrations reveal the same faces outside these spaces. These 130 images portray the world of work without artifice, focusing on individuals who are often invisible, yet whose imagination extends beyond their social condition.

The title “NOUS, la réserve” evokes the Marxist concept of a “reserve army” of labour: a workforce kept in a state of availability by capitalism. Through Paulicevich’s lens, this anonymous crowd becomes a collective “We”, a community of faces and stories resisting invisibility.

A documentary photographer, Paulicevich graduated from La Cambre and ARTS². He has taught photography at the Agnès Varda School in Brussels since 2009. His work explores human and social territories and has been exhibited in Belgium, France and internationally.

Charles Paulicevich De la série NOUS, la réserve, 2018 © Charles Paulicevich