For my family, Oran is a longed-for place, far from any possible present or future. For me, it is a post-memory and the need to start a new story. For everyone, it is an obsession. By a strange coincidence, the second city called Oran in the world, is located in Argentina, where I live. From a tone both absurd and poetic, the project explores movement, identities, memories and colonialism through an improbable journey from New Oran (Argentina) to Oran (Algeria).
The final result is a series of photos between Argentina, France, Algeria and Spain and an audiovisual piece where geographical borders are blurred and where stories, intimate or collective, are intertwined, guided by my own story and the improbable encounter with Ramon Pizarro, founder of New Oran in 1794.
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
With a resolutely provocative and humorous tone my project explore the mouvement, identities, memories and colonialism through the eyes of the generation born after the war and independence of Algeria. The final output will be a mixed-media audiovisual piece made by current digital photographs, archives, clips and sounds where both cities will be mixed, without knowing exactly where we are or who we're talking about, guided by my own family history and my voice.
HISTORY/STORY
Overlay of an old colonial map showing Algeria as a part of the French territory with a mental map , drawn by Reina, my mother about her memories of the neighborhood where she grew up in Oran and the war.
From a conflictive memory and a land of contradictions :
THE FOUNDER
ORAN, ARGENTINA - Ramon Pizzaro, a spanish military who founded the city of New Oran in 1794,in Salta, Argentina. He gave to this city the name of Oran, because he was born in Oran, in north Africa, which became Algeria later. Oran in Argentina, is the last colonial city founded in all the Americas, before the wave of independences.
MEMORIES?
BAGNEUX, FRANCE-Portrait of Reina, my mother, in the living room of her apartment, dressed in a traditional djellaba.
FROM THE OTHER SIDE
CARTAGENA, SPAIN - Blurry view from Cartagena, where my family comes from, looking in Oran, Algeria direction just on the other side of the sea.
POST-MEMORIES
MARSEILLE, FRANCE - Self portrait with blond hair and a mediteranean light.
"ORAN?"
ARCHIVE + ORAN, ARGENTINA. Overlay of an old picture of my mother house in the spanish and popular neighborhood of Orán, called Echkmul, close to the " plaza de toros" on a picture from Oran, Argentina, which definitly could be Oran, Algeria today.
THE END/THE BEGINING
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
INDEPENDENCE
ORAN, ARGENTINA - View of Guemes monument, hero of the independance of Argentina. The pride to be the last colonial city founded by the spanish colonial power dialogues in the city with the monuments to the glory of the Independance fight.
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).
SWEET BLOODY MEMORIES
PARIS, FRANCE -
A zlabia, a typical Algerian sweet on paper and my mother's favorite since childhood. The knife bursts into the picture in the same way as certain traumatic and violent memories from her Algerian childhood.
BORDERS
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Map of France is the old soldiers unions in Buenos Aires, Argentina
THE SUN, YOU AND ME
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA - My mum and I
ROOTS
ORAN, ALGERIA - Roots of a tree crossing a historical wall of the "Promenade de Létang".
PRESENT
ORAN, ALGERIA - Portrait of my mother watching for the first time after 62 years, the bay of Oran, the last view she had, when she left the country in 1962.