ASSYRIANS
Romane collected testimonies from members of the Assyrian community between Belgium and France, complementing the stories of her own grandfather and the notebooks of her great-grandfather who arrived in France from Iran. The photographer conducted an investigation by gathering the stories of this diaspora composed of different generations. Objects transported during exile, family photos, traditional outfits for festivals, figurines of protective figures from ancient Mesopotamia, landscapes, and maps appear. By blending past and present, Romane photographs by intuition and also uses fiction to evoke this quest for origins present in each of us. A project to keep a memory, a trace. To portray a scattered people trying to preserve their connections despite the distance. The members of the community fled their countries: Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran. What traces? What memories do they keep of their lands? How to rebuild elsewhere? Are they assimilated in the country where they are? How to perpetuate their culture and language: Aramaic?
A collective memory is created through these voices that tell her.
Photographic prints on Lambda print, framed archival images, transfer prints on wood plates. Brussels - Marseille. 2021 - 2022.
Festival Circulation(s), Assyrians solo show, Ambasse de France à Erevan en Arménie, 2022
Portrait Festival Circulation(s) Cent-Quatre Paris 2022
“S’exposer” collective exhibition Hangar Art Photo Center, Brussels, BE, 2021.
Finaliste for the Mentor Prize Paris session 2021
