"Here, There" - 2022

 

In 2022, this project was made possible by the support of Al Balad Residency Program in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2023, it was awarded the Aide Individuelle à la Création by the DRAC Occitanie in France. It is currently exhibited in Saïdia, Morocco until September 2024 as part of the 8th edition of “Orienta” Festival.

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I began working on the Gulf War in 2009, when I discovered the military archives of my father –a former military officer—, in our family house. These archives were composed of several photographs, videos and newspaper articles. What attracted me most were the photographs: I felt both impressed by the historical significance of the images and, at the same time, confused by my inability to understand them. The link I created with this conflict –thanks to those archival elements— is therefore, first and foremost, personal and intimate.

But the Gulf War is also a conflict which is rarely mentioned today, even though it marked a major turning point in the way we think about the representation of war. The images’ broadcast at that time –whether in the press or television— produced a real rupture in the visual field of war so much so that the absence of representation is the main aspect one may recall about that conflict.

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In 2022, after more than 11 years of study of the archives of my family and the French army’s, I started a new phase of my work by undertaking research on ground. The project "Here, There" originated from this approach. It combines the production of a photo series and a creative video documentary across France and the countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. It questions the multiplicity of points of view on the Gulf conflict by taking a sociological look on it more than 30 years later. At the same time, it examines the phenomenon of war and, particularly, its representation.

"Here, There" traces back the temporal unfolding of the historical facts and their geographic trajectories. These two dimensions are represented not only by the subjects of the proposed visual documentation but also by the technique employed for its production: the black and white infrared photography, a technology of military origin. In so doing, the work invites the viewer to acknowledge and reflect on the way the visual information produced in the contexts of war is disseminated and perceived.

By producing my own memory of this conflict through the creation of images, I propose an approach where the archival document becomes a possible receptacle of History.

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