synopsis
Almanach 1915 est un projet au long cours mêlant photographie et écriture. Le travail trouve son origine dans l’expérience de récits familiaux contés à l’auteur par sa mère ; paradoxalement merveilleux et traumatiques, ces derniers empruntent à la mémoire collective pour raconter l’intime. Leurs géographies sont incertaines mais tous ont une date commune, 1915, année qui bouleversa l’histoire des Arméniens de l’Empire ottoman et marqua le début du premier génocide du XXe siècle.
Le projet s’articule en trois chapitres qui correspondent à trois voyages et expériences à la fois distinctes et liées les unes aux autres.
Le premier, Une identité fragile (2017), est composé d’images à caractère documentaire prises lors d’un voyage entre mère et fils en Arménie. Ce travail purement photographique tente de répondre à ce questionnement identitaire fragile : Que signifie être Arménien ? Ces images sont les premières impressions laissées par un territoire sur un voyageur.
Le second, Une mémoire oublieuse (2018), fait se côtoyer différents temps : celui d’un voyage en Turquie durant lequel l’auteur a visité et photographié les villes que ses aïeux ont fuies en 1915, et celui calendaire, arrêté à cette date fatidique. Images, almanachs, archives et réappropriations mémorielles cohabitent dans le même espace, lieu de mémoire, d’oubli, et de hantise.
Le troisième, Éclats de lac, a été réalisé en automne 2020 en Arménie. Les matières qui le composent sont des photographies prises autour du lac Sevan, double métaphore de la déchirure et de l’identité, ainsi que des fragments de récits oraux, entendus en français par l’entremise d’un traducteur et retranscrits de mémoire. Ce travail a été réalisé alors que la guerre faisait rage au Haut-Karabakh, influant largement la nature des récits recueillis et interrogeant les mécanismes cathartiques de l’oralité par le biais de l’écriture spéculaire, reproduction artificielle du miroir lacustre et de son effet réfléchissant.
Dans son ensemble, le projet est un effort de réinvestissement de la mémoire intime et collective. Il vise à comprendre les stratégies narratives du récit familial hérité, à se les approprier et à s’en émanciper.
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Almanach 1915 is a long-term project mixing photography and writing. The work finds its origin in the experience of family stories told to the author by his mother; paradoxically marvelous and traumatic, these stories borrow from the collective memory to tell the intimate. Their geographies are uncertain, but they all share a common date, 1915, the year that shook the history of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and marked the beginning of the first genocide of the 20th century.
The project is articulated in three chapters that correspond to three distinct but related journeys and experiences.
The first, A Fragile Identity (2017), is composed of documentary-like images taken during a mother-son trip to Armenia. This purely photographic work attempts to answer this fragile identity question: what does it mean to be Armenian? These images are the first impressions left by a territory on a traveler.
The second, A forgetful memory (2018), brings together different times: that of a trip to Turkey during which the author visited and photographed the cities that his forefathers fled in 1915, and the calendar, stopped at that fateful date. Images, almanacs, archives and memorial reappropriations cohabit in the same space, a place of memory, oblivion and haunting.
The third, Lake shards, was realized in autumn 2020 in Armenia. The materials that compose it are photographs taken around Lake Sevan, a double metaphor of tear and identity, as well as fragments of oral narratives, heard in french through a translator and transcribed from memory. This work was carried out while the war was raging in Nagorno-Karabakh, largely influencing the nature of the narratives collected and questioning the cathartic mechanisms of orality through specular writing, an artificial reproduction of the lake mirror and its reflective effect.
As a whole, the project is an effort to reinvest intimate and collective memory. It aims to understand the narrative strategies of the inherited family narrative, to appropriate them and to emancipate oneself from them.
The project is articulated in three chapters that correspond to three distinct but related journeys and experiences.
The first, A Fragile Identity (2017), is composed of documentary-like images taken during a mother-son trip to Armenia. This purely photographic work attempts to answer this fragile identity question: what does it mean to be Armenian? These images are the first impressions left by a territory on a traveler.
The second, A forgetful memory (2018), brings together different times: that of a trip to Turkey during which the author visited and photographed the cities that his forefathers fled in 1915, and the calendar, stopped at that fateful date. Images, almanacs, archives and memorial reappropriations cohabit in the same space, a place of memory, oblivion and haunting.
The third, Lake shards, was realized in autumn 2020 in Armenia. The materials that compose it are photographs taken around Lake Sevan, a double metaphor of tear and identity, as well as fragments of oral narratives, heard in french through a translator and transcribed from memory. This work was carried out while the war was raging in Nagorno-Karabakh, largely influencing the nature of the narratives collected and questioning the cathartic mechanisms of orality through specular writing, an artificial reproduction of the lake mirror and its reflective effect.
As a whole, the project is an effort to reinvest intimate and collective memory. It aims to understand the narrative strategies of the inherited family narrative, to appropriate them and to emancipate oneself from them.