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 finally gained its independence from France, after 130 years of colonialism and 8 years of war. Reina, my Spanish mother, born in Algiers and raised in Oran during the conflict, migrated to France at her 10 ( after a few months in Spain) in 1962, where she is one of 4-million people directly connected to this troubled transnational history. “Searching for Oran” is a personal journey and a conversation that aims to bring together different voices, generations and territories, from France to Algeria, through Argentina where I migrated more than a decade ago.
By a strange coincidence, the second city called Oran in the world, is located in Argentina, where I live. I propose a journey from New Oran (Argentina) to Oran (Algeria), around migration, identity,memories and colonialism. Searching for Oran” is an intimate and personal reflection, necessary to be able to embrace a collective process with the other heirs. This project is a chapter of a long-term and ongoing visual research and the reflexive basis of the subsequent chapter, "Algeria, a mosaic of heirs", where I go to meet other people like me, from the generation of the after, connected in different ways with Algeria in the French society.
With the support of the CNAP - Center of National Visual Arts (2021 - France) and the FNA . National Fund for Arts ( 2023-Argentina)
Teaser of the video piece
From a conflictive memory and a land of contradictions :