ABOUT
“Focus on social issues with a documentary approach in Care.”
© Maëlle HeliasMember of Futures Photography
Romane's studio is based in the Grand Hospice Brussels (BE), possibility of visit on request. ︎ Click here to see
EN
Romane Iskaria is a French photographer and artist working in Brussels, Belgium (1997). She graduated with a Master's degree in photography from ENSAV La Cambre in 2022 and a DNA (National Diploma in Plastic Arts) from INSEAAM Beaux Arts in Marseille in 2018. She also completed an exchange at the U-LAVAL Visual Arts school in Quebec, Canada.
The photographer highlights the injustices and inequalities of invisible communities with a documentary and fictional approach. Her images, specific to “Care”, tell a story and allow her subjects to become aware of their painful stories.
The artist uses photography and the field of video, but also textiles, sound, and sculpture to create immersive installations. She tells stories that take the form of a long-term investigation across several territories. Romane replays specific rituals and stories that also transcend borders, addressing questions around migration and exile. The photographer creates plastic forms allowing her to subvert the codes of documentary.
Romane is laureate of TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography.
Romane Iskaria is a French photographer and artist working in Brussels, Belgium (1997). She graduated with a Master's degree in photography from ENSAV La Cambre in 2022 and a DNA (National Diploma in Plastic Arts) from INSEAAM Beaux Arts in Marseille in 2018. She also completed an exchange at the U-LAVAL Visual Arts school in Quebec, Canada.
The photographer highlights the injustices and inequalities of invisible communities with a documentary and fictional approach. Her images, specific to “Care”, tell a story and allow her subjects to become aware of their painful stories.
The artist uses photography and the field of video, but also textiles, sound, and sculpture to create immersive installations. She tells stories that take the form of a long-term investigation across several territories. Romane replays specific rituals and stories that also transcend borders, addressing questions around migration and exile. The photographer creates plastic forms allowing her to subvert the codes of documentary.
Romane is laureate of TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography.
FR
Romane Iskaria est une photographe et artiste française travaillant à Bruxelles en Belgique (1997). Elle est diplômée d’un Master de photographie à l’ENSAV La Cambre en 2022 et d’un DNA (Diplôme National d’Arts Plastiques) de l’INSEAAM Beaux Arts de Marseille en 2018. Elle a aussi réalisé un échange à l’école d’Arts Visuel U-LAVAL à Québec au Canada.
La photographe met en lumière les injustices et les inégalités de communautés invisibilisées avec une approche documentaire et fictive. Ses images, propre au “Care”, font état d’un récit et permettent à ses sujets de prendre conscience de leurs histoires douloureuses.
L’artiste utilise la photographie et le champs de la vidéo, mais aussi le textile, le son, la sculpture afin de créer des installations immersives. Elle raconte des récits qui prennent la forme d'enquête au long court sur plusieurs territoires. Romane rejoue des rituels et des histoires spécifiques venant aussi transcender les frontières, abordant des questions autour des migrations et de l'exil. La photographe créee des formes plastiques lui permettant de détourner les codes du documentaire.
Romane est lauréate du TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, par le FOMU Fotomuseum Anvers et la plateforme européenne FUTURES Photography.
Romane Iskaria est une photographe et artiste française travaillant à Bruxelles en Belgique (1997). Elle est diplômée d’un Master de photographie à l’ENSAV La Cambre en 2022 et d’un DNA (Diplôme National d’Arts Plastiques) de l’INSEAAM Beaux Arts de Marseille en 2018. Elle a aussi réalisé un échange à l’école d’Arts Visuel U-LAVAL à Québec au Canada.
La photographe met en lumière les injustices et les inégalités de communautés invisibilisées avec une approche documentaire et fictive. Ses images, propre au “Care”, font état d’un récit et permettent à ses sujets de prendre conscience de leurs histoires douloureuses.
L’artiste utilise la photographie et le champs de la vidéo, mais aussi le textile, le son, la sculpture afin de créer des installations immersives. Elle raconte des récits qui prennent la forme d'enquête au long court sur plusieurs territoires. Romane rejoue des rituels et des histoires spécifiques venant aussi transcender les frontières, abordant des questions autour des migrations et de l'exil. La photographe créee des formes plastiques lui permettant de détourner les codes du documentaire.
Romane est lauréate du TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, par le FOMU Fotomuseum Anvers et la plateforme européenne FUTURES Photography.
Text on Romane Iskaria work by Brazilian art critic Ana Luisa Lima, published in the .tiff Emerging Belgian Photography magazine 2024.
Romane Iskaria’s artistic work blends photography, video, sculpture and textiles to create immersive installations that plunge viewers into the very heart of a specific subject.
Through an investigative methodology that is far from impersonal or objective, Iskaria relies on invoking her own ancestral past as a methodology for approaching and activating present-day histories. Her sense of otherness is not a reified and distanced “object” of study, but rather a subjective experience within a process that explores and examines a shared historical past.
As part of her Assyrians project, Iskaria listened to members of the Assyrian communities in Belgium and France. Their stories added to those of her grandfather, and to the journal entries of her great-grandfather who had migrated to France from Iran. The transgenerational narratives of this diaspora are present in the items that people brought along on their exile: family photographs, traditional clothing, figurines from ancient Mesopotamia, and maps.
Romane Iskaria’s artistic work blends photography, video, sculpture and textiles to create immersive installations that plunge viewers into the very heart of a specific subject.
Through an investigative methodology that is far from impersonal or objective, Iskaria relies on invoking her own ancestral past as a methodology for approaching and activating present-day histories. Her sense of otherness is not a reified and distanced “object” of study, but rather a subjective experience within a process that explores and examines a shared historical past.
As part of her Assyrians project, Iskaria listened to members of the Assyrian communities in Belgium and France. Their stories added to those of her grandfather, and to the journal entries of her great-grandfather who had migrated to France from Iran. The transgenerational narratives of this diaspora are present in the items that people brought along on their exile: family photographs, traditional clothing, figurines from ancient Mesopotamia, and maps.
Intuitively combining fiction and reality, the photographer examines the relationship between past and present stories whose key implication is the protection of origins: a means of survival for diasporic communities.
Striving to “recover truths”, Romane embarks on an ethical and aesthetic exercise in phantasy*, a term translated from the Greek [φανταὓία] that designates the ability to produce imaginary representations or mental images. Her compositions of postures, objects and architectures reactivate the symbols of an invisible past.
By preserving the truth and addressing the desire for historical reparations, in a single gesture Iskaria portrays the rightful futures of communities not as simple predicates of hegemonic narratives, but as protagonists.
* Imaginary, according to Husserlian philosophy
EXHIBITIONS
Solo show
2025 Uzina Energisa Institute - art gallery, João Pessoa, Paraiba, Northeast BRAZIL, February 2025.
Collaboration with the Brazilian PhD in anthropology and descolonialism Osvaldo Falcão, curated by visual artist Serge Huot.
2023-2024 TAMAT Tournai (Museum of Tapestry and Textile Arts of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation) special mention by Mediatine Prize 2023, “Jaré” video and textile installation, Tournai BE
2022 Festival Circulation(s) OFF, “Assyrians” outside the walls in front of the French Embassy, Erevan, Armenia
Group show
2025 Lille Art-Up with Institute for Photography of Lille FR - March
2025 House of European History Brussels, Presence of the past, Brussels BE - March
2024 ART-ICON, Corporeality, Paris FR
2024 Mesopotamiart, Cultural Center of Sarcelles, Paris FR
2024 TIFF 2024, Brakke Grond Flemish Cultural Center Amsterdam NE
2024 TIFF 2024, F.O.M.U museum, Antwerp BE - June
2024 Gallery PAND00X, Hidden Conversations, Courtrai BE - June
2024 Tiny-Gallery, Tissus d’Exil a project with EXIL mental health center, Brussels BE - April
2024 Hangar Art Photo Center, Beyond, Image Unique, Brussels BE
2023 S.M.A.K Museum of Contemporary Art, NICCx25, Gand BE
2023 Foundation Carrefour des Arts, BEYOND end of the residency, Brussels BE
2023 Gallery ART-ARK, AKITU Diaspora In Bloom, San José USA
2023 Art Au Centre, Liège BE
2023 Médiatine Prize, special mention by museum TAMAT Tournai for work “Jaré”, 40 years with Wolubilis Center, Brussels BE
2022 BPS22 Museum, FRICTION(S), Charleroi BE
2022 Assyrian Policy Institute, Assyrian Film in diaspora pop-Up with Diaspora in Bloom, Washington D.C USA
2022 ART-BRUSSELS OFF, Gallery FACE-B, Un grand amour suffit, Brussels BE
2022 Circulation(s) Festival, CENT-QUATRE, Paris FR
2022 HISK (Higher Institute of Fine Arts), Tell Me Louder, Brussels BE
2022 Gallery La Grande Vitrine, Arles FR
2021 Noordelisht Internationaal Fotofestival, The Makeable Mind, Groningen NE
2021 Hangar Art Photo Center, S’exposer, Brussels BE
2021 Gallery TICK-TACK, Third Place Or What?, Anvers BE
2020 L’Asilo, Popolare, Naples IT
2019 Gallery HLM Photography Center, AT-WORK, Marseille FR
2019 Mini Mécénat : Le Trait d’Union, Santa Rita Brésil, Marseille FR
ARTISTIC RESIDENCY
2025 Center Arapuca Arte e Cultura : three months research and artistic creation residency, Condé Paraiba Northeast BRAZIL
2024 Center Arapuca Arte e Cultura : two months research and artistic creation residency, Condé Paraiba Northeast BRAZIL
2022 - 2023 Foundation Carrefour des Arts : nine month research and artistic creation residency Brussels BE
AWARDS / GRANTS
TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, laureate FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography, BE, 2024
OpenFolio #4, laureate, Institute for photography of Lilles FR 2024
SOFAM Grant, laureate (Multimedia Society of Visual Arts Authors Belgium) 2023
Grant for publishing production, FWB (Wallonia-Brussels Federation), 2023
Mediatine Prize, laureate with a special mention by TAMAT Tournai (Museum of Textile Arts and Tapestries), Brussels BE, 2023
Belgian Photo Book Prize, Brussels BE, 2022
Polka Magazine & Kickstarter call for projects, laureate with Assyrians book for a creation and support of a first artist book, Paris FR 2021
King Baudouin Foundation Scholarship, Brussels BE 2021
Freelens Mentor Prize, finalist, Paris FR 2021
Poznan Art Prize, 2nd prize, Pologne, 2020
BOOK
2022: Assyrians, self published, 300 copies, design and conception Camille Carbonaro de MacaroniBook.
CONFERENCE
2024: Presentation of her work “Los Encantos Historias de Luta“, Institut Energysa Uzina, Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, BRASIL
2023: Conference presentation of artistic research at the Fine Arts Charleroi invited by photographer Kamand Razavi, Charleroi BE
SOCIAL PROJECTS
2023-2024: TISSUS D’EXIL, collaborative project and animation workshop with a group of exiled womens with the EXIL Center (Mental Health center, specialized in the rehabilitation of refugees), Brussels BE
2022: REVERSE MIGRATORY JOURNEY, official photographer for the project with the association La Tour de Babel Brussels, a trip with 25 young people to the south-east of Turkey. Supported by Erasmus+ and the B.I.J (international youth office), south-east of TURKEY
2021: MIGRATORY TRACES, volunteer artist with ASMAE association, TriPostal, Brussels BE
PRESS PUBLICATIONS
2024: TIFF Magazine by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp BE
2024: A UNIÃ0 newspaper, Encantos nas comunidades em Condé, BRASIL
2024: Cahier d’Images, by Kevin Mulhen, Casino Luxembourg
2024: NICCx25, 25 years for standing up for artists rights, Stockman Arts Book with museum SMAK Gand BE
2024: Origines review n1 by MacaroniBook BE
2023: SOFAM review n4, (Multimedia Society of Visual Arts Authors Belgium), BE
2023: Based Istanbul, interview Unframed Meeting with Ancestors: Romane Iskaria Istanbul TURKEY
2023: 5 Rue du, Assyrians by critic Frederic Martin FR
2022: 9 lives magazine, Assyrians, mémoire d’un génocide FR
2022: L’intervalle Blog, Assyrie le chant de l’exil, by Fabien Ribery FR
2022: Ectomie Patriarcale, Xeno Exhibitions Brussels BE
2020: Fisheye le mag Coup de coeur pour Sceneggiatta FR
2020: La Zone Utopies-Distopies série 9m2 Marseille FR
RADIOS
2023: Radio BX1 : Interview Le Brunch Romane Iskaria with Marion Maréchal : Les artistes de chez nous BE
2021: Assyria TV : Interview with Fédération Assyrienne de France FR
EDUCATIONS
2022: MFA in Photography, ENSAV La Cambre with distinctions, Brussels BE
2019: Erasmus in master's degree in visual arts at the art school of U-LAVAL Quebec University, Québec CA
2018: DNA (National Diploma of Plastic Art) with distinctions, INSEAMM (Marseille National School of Fine Arts), Marseille FR
View of the studio during the creative residency at the Carrefour des Arts Foundation, Brussels (Belgium), 2023
Exhibition view Los Encantos, .TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, FOMU Antwerp (BE) 2024
Exhibition view, Assyrians, AKITU exhibition, Diaspora in Bloom, gallery ART-ARK, San José, (USA), 2023
Exhibition view, Limit Middle East, 30 /p 34x23 cm, BEYOND end of the residency, Foundation Carrefour des Arts, Brussels (Belgium), 2023
Exhibition view, Jaré, Frictions, BPS22 Museum, Charleroi (Belgium), June 2022
Exhibition view, Assyrians, Festival Circulation(s) OFF, French Ambassy of Armenia, Erevan (Armenia), 2021
Exhibition view, Enūma eliš, BEYOND end of the residency, Carrefour des Arts Foundation, Brussels (Belgium), June 2023
Exhibition view, Le Pays Disparu, exhibition Third Place or What?, TICK-TACK Gallery, Antwerp (Belgium), 2021
Exhibition view, Enūma Elis film, BEYOND end of the residency, Carrefour des Arts Foundation, Brussels (Belgium), June 2023