I'M THE CHILD BORN
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA
( PREVIOUS CHAPTERS OF THIS RESEARCH + THEIR IMPACT SO FAR )
"As a young architecture student, I fled from any subject related to engineering, especially those that had to do with bridges and other mega-structures. Maybe I never wanted to learn how to build a bridge in a real way, because my own body and soul would naturally take this form. "
"Everything starts in her mind and in what she let escape, little by little. It’s been 15 years that I’ve been hearing my mother Reina talking about Algeria: “In Algeria this, in Algeria that...”.
The country has finally burst into my daily life through her, but also through the neighborhood where I grew up, in a popular Parisian suburb. "
"Searching for Oran"
BAGNEUX, FRANCE - Portait of Reina, my mother
Clipping from a Spanish newspaper, where we can see my family arriving at the port of Alicante, after they escaped from Algeria, towards the end of the war, in June 1962.
And little by little a question arises: For me what is Algeria?
MARSEILLE, FRANCE - Self portrait with blond hair and a mediteranean light.
THE SUN, YOU AND ME
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - My hand on my mother's shoulder
SWEET BLOODY MEMORIES
PARIS, FRANCE - A zlabia, a typical sweet of the Maghreb and a favorite of my mother's since childhood. The knife bursts into the painting in the same way that certain traumatic and violent memories do with the sweetness of Algerian childhood.
THE DEPARTURE
ORAN, ARGELIA - View of the port from where 2 ferries sent by Spain departed to allow Spanish citizens to escape the violent context of the war between France and Algeria (1954-1962).
BORDERS
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - Map of France in the French old soldiers unions in Buenos Aires, Argentina
For my family, Oran is a place that you long for, removed from any possible present and future. For me, it’s a post-memory and the need to start a new story. In 1962, Algeria gained its independence from France, after 130 years of colonialism and eight years of war. My Spanish mother, born and raised in Oran during the conflict, migrated in 1962 to France, where she is one of 4-million people directly connected to this troubled chapter in history. Reina never went back until...
ORAN, ALGERIA, MARCH 2024
My mother is the only one in my family who dared to overcome the fear of returning to the beloved place she left 60 years ago in a context of inter-communal violence during the war of independence, encouraged by my documentary work and our conversations. In this video, she sees again for the first time her street and where she played as a child, in the shadow of the famous bullring of the Eckhmul neighborhood.
" And for others, what is Algeria?
The others, who are they anyway?
Is there an us in which we can find ourselves?
What is our common heritage? "
" Algeria(s), a mosaic of heirs"
Late afternoon on a rock in the Vallon des Auffes. Marseille, France. May 15, 2022. Following the steps of Norah Bouhacene in "her" Marseille, we arrive on this rock, where she knows everyone. "The rock of the Algerians" she says laughing. Here, everyone has a link with Algeria, by one or both parents, by birth.
The project draws a portrait of the community linked to Algeria in the French territory and its archipelago of memories from intimate stories, based on encounters across France. Here, no linear or descriptive narration, but portraits around which gravitate a series of sequences that function as microcosms of ideas, questions and emotions that sometimes answer each other smoothly, sometimes clash. To make visible to the eye and the mind the chaos of deep emotions that Algeria arouses today, from France.
“In France you can be Franco-anything, no problem, but as soon as you are Franco-Maghrebi, it is impossible. France and Algeria, it's I love you, I don't love you, I love you, I don't love you. ”
Norah Bouhacene, Vallon des Auffes, Marseille, France.
Daughter of a “pied noir” (European living in Algeria during the colonial period), Algeria is for her a buried identity, a kind of hereditary suffering.
Her personal journey led her to embrace Islam, outside the pied-noir environment where she grew up and what she sometimes describes as inherited racism.
Emilie Belafkih, at her home in Rognac,
Bouches-du-Rhône, France.
Four jerseys hanging in front of a store near the Marché du Soleil in Marseille, France. From left to right: French soccer team jersey, military uniform, Algerian team jersey, Tunisian team jersey.Soccer is a subject that cannot be separated from questions related to identity, cultural belonging but also to political issues. The matches of Algeria and the Algerian supporters are always the object of stigmatization on behalf of a certain political class, but also the other countries of the Maghreb, like Morocco at the time of the world cup with the clearly expressed idea "that it is necessary to choose".
Impact
Exhibitions " Algeria(s), a mosaic of heirs"
PHOTO MARSEILLE FESTIVAL, Exhibition in the public space in downtown.
" Multidisciplinary artist Anita Pouchard Serra presents a report exploring the complexity of transnational identities, starting from her own multicultural family history between France and Algeria." PHMuseum, November 2023.
Exhibition " La France sous leurs yeux" at French National Library from March to June 2024
Exhibition " La France sous leurs yeux" at French National Library from March to June 2024
INTERVIEW FOR RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONAL
About the exhibition at the National French Library as a part of the " Grand commande de photojournalisme" organized in 2021-2022 by the Ministry of Culture.
Me, Reina ( my mother) and Norah ( participant of " Algeria(s), a mosaic of heirs" and current colaborator of the project " I'm the child born on the other side of the sea).
During the exhibition of " Algeria(s), a mosaic of heirs " in Paris, April 2024.
Norah posed with her mother in Marseille, during the exhibition of " Algeria(s), a mosaic of heirs" at Photo Marseille, in front of the picture of her, I took in 2022 during the project.
Exhibitions " Searching for Oran"
Exhibition of " Searching for Oran" at Sharjah Biennal in 2023. United Arab Emirates.
Exhibition of " Searching for Oran" at Sharjah Biennal in 2023. United Arab Emirates.
Artist in Focus: Anita Pouchard Serra speaks about her Sharjah Biennial 15 work ‘Searching for Oran’ (2019–ongoing), which comprises video, sound and photography.Informed by the personal experiences of her mother, Reina, who was born in Algiers and grew up in Oran amid the Algerian War before migrating to France, Pouchard Serra reflects on the multigenerational legacy of colonialism and independence.The work initiates a polyphonic conversation about the complexities of transnational identity, memory and relationships shaped by more than a century of colonial imposition and almost a decade of conflict.
“ Searching for Oran” video installation in Estación Belgrano , Santa Fe, Argentina on May 2024 for the ” Nuit des idées” organized by the French Institute and the Ministry of Culture of Santa Fe.The piece mixed videos from Oran in Algeria and the New Oran in Argentina, the one I first discovered before being able to travel to Algeria in March 2024.
Front page and Interview about " Searching for Oran" in Clarin ( Argentina) on May 2024 about my talk and audiovisual installation for the " Night of Ideas" organized worldwide by the French Institute.